595 
GRAMINEiE. (GRASS FAMILY.) 
coriaceous, somewhat boat-shaped, but not keeled, indistinctly 
many-nerved, acute. Ovary stalked. Flowers often polygamo- 
dicecious, pretty large. Leaves crowded on the culms, involute, 
mostly rigid. Otherwise essentially as in Poa. (Name com¬ 
pounded of Briza (No. 27), and nvpos, Wheat). 
1. B. SpicatlllH, Hook. Culms tufled, from creeping root¬ 
stocks (9 ; -18' high), rigid, very leafy upward; spike oblong, flat¬ 
tened (l'long); spikelets ovate or oblong, 5- 10-flowered; glumes 
keeled ; flowers smooth and naked ; lower palea about 9-nerved; 
grain pointed. (Un)ola spicata, L. Poa Michahxii, Kunth.) — Salt 
marshes and shores. Aug. — Certainly dioecious; the pistillate flow¬ 
ers more rigid and almost keeled, with very long plumose stigmas; 
the sterile smaller, somewhat rounded on the back. 
31. POA, L. Meadow-Grass. Spear-Grass. 
Spikelets ovate or oblong, compressed, few-flowered, in an open 
panicle. Glumes mostly shorter than the flowers, the lower 
smaller. Lower palea membranaceo-herbaceous, with a scarious 
margin, compressed-keeled, pointless, 5-nerved (the intermediate 
nerves more obscure or obsolete), the principal nerves commonly 
clothed at and towards the base with soft and matted or cobweb¬ 
like hairs; upper palea membranaceous, rather smaller, 2-toothed, 
falling with the lower at maturity. Stamens 2-3. Stigmas 
simply plumose. Grain oblong.— Culms tufted. Leaves smooth, 
usually flat and soft. (An ancient Greek name for grass.) (Root 
perennial, except in No. 1.) 
* Branches of the panicle 1-2 together , or rarely 3 from the lower joints. 
■*- Shorty and very smooth. 
1. P. L. (Low Spear-Grass.) Culms spreading 
or decumbent (3'-8' long), flattish; leaves short; panicle short and 
broad, often one-sided, at length spreading; spikelets crowded, very 
short-pedicelled, 3 - 7-flowered ; the flowers elliptical-ovate, minutely 
downy above. — Cultivated and waste grounds, everywhere. April- 
October. 
2. P. lsaxa, Hsenke. (Mountain Meadow-Grass.) Culms 
upright (4'-8'high); panicle small, somewhat racemed-contracted 
or spreading, loose, often very simple; the branches solitary or in 
pairs; pedicels mostly as long as the Z-5-flowered (jmrple-tinged) 
spikelets; flowers lanceolate-ovate, acute, woolly-haired on the keel 
and margins below, the nerves obsolete; leaves narrowly linear, 
acute. — Alpine mountain-tops, Maine to N. New York, and north- 
