GRASS TRIBE 85 
stem will sometimes rise to the height of 6 feet, while in drier places it is 
not more than half as high. Its stem is leafy, and the upper sheath is larger 
than the leaf. The leaves are broad, flat and rough on both sides, and of a 
deep green colour; but the panicle is pale green. This is large and loose, 
much like the brome-grasses, especially the hairy wood brome-grass, but 
with smaller spikelets and of a brighter green colour: the abundant foliage 
is eaten by cattle; but this is not one of the most nutritious grasses. It 
flowers in July and August. 
32. (42) BROME-GRASS (brémus). 
1. Upright Brome-grass (B. eréctus).— Panicle erect without 
branches; spikelets narrow, lance-shaped, -erect ; flowers distant from each 
other, about twice as long as the straight awn. In one form the spikelets 
are smooth and shiny, in another they are downy. Perennial. This is not 
a common grass, but grows on dry sandy or chalky soils, in fields and by 
road-sides. The stem is commonly smooth and round, and 2 or 3 feet high ; 
the root leaves are narrow, and the upper leaf always much broader than 
the others. The erect panicle expands in June and July, and is remarkable 
in the early part of its growth for the purplish colour of the spikelets and 
their awns. The grass is frequent on the dry stony hills of Somersetshire, 
Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire, where it attains unusual luxuriance, and its 
ordinary height is 2 or 3 feet. In its wild state it is one of the most common 
Grasses of the Cotswolds, where it descends also into the vale. It is a harsh 
plant, and has long been known to be rejected by cattle. Professor Buck- 
man remarks: ‘Its agricultural value is practically demonstrated by the 
disinclination of cattle to eat it, and the very poor hay it makes; and it is 
interesting to find that in the analysis of twenty species of our commonest 
meadow grasses by Professor Way, this grass in the dry state stands the 
seventeenth in its amount of albuminous or flesh-forming principles, being 
nearly at the bottom of the list, or among the last in point of value.” 
2. Hairy Wood Brome-grass (BS. dsper).—Panicle drooping, with 
long, little divided branches; flowers remote, hairy ; awn straight, shorter 
than the larger glume. Annual. This is one of the commonest species of 
the genus ; and ‘its slightly rough stem, which is 3 to 6 feet high, bears in 
June and July an elegant nodding panicle of spikelets, which are sometimes 
an inch long, of a greyish-green hue, and rough branches. The root leaves 
are very broad, much more so than those on the stem, silvery hairs are 
scattered over them, and they are rough to the touch. This grass grows in 
moist woods and hedges, but is of no agricultural value, being so harsh and 
coarse that cattle rarely eat it. 
3. Barren Brome-grass (B. sférilis)—Panicle drooping, with long, 
little divided branches ; spikelets very long; flowers distant from each other, 
shorter than the straight awn; outer flowering glume very distinctly 
7-ribbed. Annual. In the month of July this tall and handsome grass 
hangs its cluster of large narrow long-awned spikelets, each on a long slender 
branchlet, in many a hedge, or on waste ground, or road-side. In the early 
period of their growth they are pale green, sometimes delicately tinted with 
purple; they afterwards become dull greyish-green or occasionally dingy 
