CLASS III. ORDER II.] AVENA. 



139 



rets about three, shorter than the glumes, tawny, at length brown. 

 Glumelles unequal: the outer thick and coriaceous, lanceolate, the 

 margins and long tai)ering point bifid at the apex, membranous, nu- 

 merously ribbed, roughish, the base clothed with long, flat, twisted> 

 pale-brown, and glossy hairs; men from below the middle of the back, 

 about two inches long, stout and roughish, with minute points, the 

 lower part twisted : inner valve lanceolate, with two marginal, finely 

 ciliated ribs. Stigmas feathery. Fruit downy, enveloped in the hard- 

 ened glumelles. 



Habitat. — Corn-fields ; not unfrequent. 



Annual ; flowering from June to August. 



The awn of this species forms an excellent hygrometer, but is not so 

 large, or so sensible to the changes in the moisture of the atmosphere, 

 as that of the exotic Arena sterilis, tvhich is kept constantly in an 

 apparent spontaneous motion, and has some resemblance to an insect; 

 hence it has received the name of " animal Oat." The florets are 

 sometimes used by anglers in the place of artificial flies. It is some- 

 times mistaken for the common cultivated Oat, A. sativa, which has 

 one or more of its upper florets imperfect and awnless ; the florets are 

 also without hairs at the base, and the awn is not so stout or so long. 

 The Oat is the grain grown in cold countries, where it is considered 

 the bread-corn, and used as the food of man — as in some parts of 

 England and Scotland, part of Siberia, and the northern parts of Nor- 

 Avay and Sweden ; but in warmer latitudes, the ears become so small, 

 and the grain so poor, as to be scarcely worth cultivation. The grain 

 deprived of the skin is known by the name of" groats," of which there 

 are several kinds, as the common, split, patent, and Embden ; ground 

 down they form meal or oatmeal, which is variously prepared as an 

 article of diet, or used medicinally. The great productiveness of the 

 Oat, like that of Wheat, is sometimes very remarkable. In Turner's 

 " Sacred History of the World," it is stated, that " an Oat-stalk taken 

 from a field at Sealand, near Chester, had 237 grains. Another, on a 

 field lately part of Cockermouth Common, had 251. A wild Oat at 

 Milton was ten feet high, and had 150 grains. One ear at Mansfield 

 was fifteen inches long, and contained 283. In 1824 a single grain of 

 Oats having fallen on a quantity of burnt clay, produced 19 stems and 

 2945 grains." 



2. A. strigo-sa, Schrad. (Fig. 180.) bristle-pointed Oat. Panicle 



erect, the branches all turned to one side ; florets two, as long as 



the glumes, the outer valve terminated by two bristles, the back 



with a long awn. 



English Botany, t. 1226.— English Flora, vol. i. p. 163.— Lindley, 



Synopsis, p. 310. — Hooker, British Flora, vol. i. p. 53. 



Root fibrous. Stem erect, from two to three feet high, smooth, 

 Striated, and leafy. Leaves broadly linear, acute, striated, a glaucous- 



