HOW TO KNOW THE GRASSES 



5a. Glumes lanceolate, acute, more than twice as long as wide; grain 

 remaining inclosed by the lemma and palea; plants perennial .... 6 



5b. Glumes broadly ovate, blunt, less than twice as long as wide; grain 

 falling free of the lemma and palea; cultivated annual. Fig. 162. 

 WHEAT Tnticum aestivum L. 



Figure 162 



Wheat is the most extensively cultivated of 

 the small grains and may be found growing 

 in fields, waste places and roadsides as the 

 result of seed being scattered accidentally. Some 

 varieties of wheat have owned lemmas, others 

 are awnless. Two primitive kinds of wheat, 

 EMMER and SPELT, have spikes with a brittle 

 rachis which breaks into individual joints at 

 maturity. Both are occasionally grown as feed 

 grains in dry regions. All introduced from the 

 Old World. 



6a. Plants producing creeping rhizomes 7 



6b. Plants lacking rhizomes 8 



7a. Leaves bluish glaucous, often inroUed; upper leaf surface fur- 

 rowed, with 7 — 14 ridges across the width. Fig. 163. 



WESTERN WHEATGRASS Agropyron smithii Rydb. 



Perennial; culms 30 — 60 cm. tall- 

 leaves heavily glaucous, so that patches 

 of the plants have a conspicuous blue 

 or silvery color when viewed from a dis- 

 tance. Spikes slender, with erect spike- 

 lets. This is essentially a plant of the 

 mountain and plains states of the West, 

 but is occasionally found farther east. 

 In the western parts of its range it is a 

 source of forage on moist alkaUne soil. 

 Farther east, it grows on dry uplands, 

 railroad embankments, etc. June — 

 August. 



Figure 163 



87 



