THE GRASSES. 



55 



not very readily. The leaves have almost uniformly 

 a plaited or wrinkled margin when they first ex- 

 pand. 



The Reed (Arundo) is distinguished by having 

 3. 5, or more woolly glumes in a common, and 

 rather long, membranaceous calyx. It has also 

 broader leaves than almost any other grass, is nearly 

 aquatic, and generally of a gigantic height, in all the 

 species. 



In Wheat the flowers are collected together into a 

 spike of two rows, made up of spikelets or clus- 

 ters seated on the indented stem or rachis, each 

 calyx containing 3 or 4 flowers, the central ones, 

 for want of room to expand, are rendered infertile, 

 the two outer flowers only producing any grain. 

 The calyx glume, from the magnitude of the seed, be- 

 comes broad and boat-shaped, terminated simply by 

 a point, or else by an awn, the larger v >lve of the co- 

 rolla also ends in a bristle Nearly all the Wheat cul- 

 tivated is but one species, and now known to produce 

 many permanent varieties. 



The Darnel, Tare or Lolkim, produces its flowers 

 in a spike almost in the manner of Wheat, but the calyx 

 consists of but a single outer valve, and contains a 

 spikelet of many equal flowers like a Festuca. The 

 common species, here naturalized, is perennial, and 

 has beardless flowers ; the annual kind, in Europe, 

 though, I believe, seldom in America, overruns fields of 

 grain, and where mixed in any considerable propor- 

 tion with Wheat, which it resembles, though less in 

 size, produces a bread which is deleterious, and ap- 

 parently intoxicating. 



The delightful and well known vanilla odor of new 

 hay is chiefly produced by the presence of the Ver- 

 nal-grass, or Anthoxanthum odoratum. The flowers, 

 when mature, form a yellow chaffy spike ; the calyx, 



