GRASS TRIBE 95 
on the upper side, and of a deep green colour. It is readily distinguished 
from the next species by its slender spikelets, as well as by its growth among 
bushes or trees. 
2. Heath False Brome-grass (B. pinnitum).—Spike erect ; spikelets 
nearly cylindrical, in two rows; awns shorter than the glumes ; rootstock 
somewhat creeping. Perennial. This grass has flat, narrow, rigid, nearly 
smooth leaves, andin July is very elegaat, especially on those chalky, upland, 
heathy places, where it attains great luxuriance. It is always an indicator of 
a poor soil, and disappears as the land is improved. It is a rare grass, 
growing in open places in several counties, from York to Devon and Kent. 
It sometimes has a double row of spikelets, and a variety with leaves rolling 
inwards is found near Bath. It is of no value to the agriculturist. 
39. (44) DARNEL, RYE-GRASS (Ldlium). 
1. Common Rye-grass, Red Darnel, or Beardless Darnel (L. per- 
énne).—Spike erect, occasionally compound ; spikelets 6—8-flowered ; empty 
glume solitary, shorter than the spikelet, awnless. Perennial. This common 
grass of waysides and pastures, with a dark green or purplish-green spike, 
about a third of the length of the stem, is commonly one or two feet high. 
It varies, however, very much according to the soil on which it grows, being 
sometimes not half a foot in height, at others rising to that of three feet. 
Sometimes the spikelets are few and distant, at others they are very close 
together, and occasionally the spike becomes clustered. It flowers in June 
and July. Several stems grow together, and are round, smooth, rigid, with 
purplish joints, and the leaves are pointed, smooth, and marked with lines. 
The root produces leafy, barren shoots. This grass is extensively cultivated, 
but in many soils it loses its perennial nature, and becomes a biennial grass. 
It is believed to be the meadow grass which was earliest cultivated in Europe, 
though the period at which it was first sown is uncertain. Dr. Plot remarks 
of it in 1677, “They have lately sown Ray grass, Gramen loliaceuwm, to im- 
prove cold, sour, clayey, weeping ground, unfit for Saint-foin.” It was sown 
in the Chiltern parts of Oxfordshire. It has several varieties, known to 
farmers as Pacey’s grass, Russell’s Rye, ete. 
2. Bearded Rye-grass (L. multiflérum).—Spikelets many-flowered ; 
flowering glumes lance-shaped and awned. This plant is found in some parts 
of England and Scotland, but only where it has been cultivated in fields. It 
is the well-known meadow grass, called by the farmers Italian Rye-grass, and 
is by Dr. Parnell considered a variety of ZL. perenne. Professor Buckman 
found that both in that and this plant when grown in the Botanic Garden, 
the annual seeding caused the old plants to periodically die out, but they, 
being replaced by seedlings, the first form, LZ. perenne, was tolerably well 
maintained from year to year; but that the Z. itdlicwm, which he considers 
as being a variety of L. perenne, has a tendency to revert under such circum- 
stances of growth to the original form. The Italian Rye-grass is a handsome 
plant, its long awns giving it a crested appearance at midsummer. It is 
paler in colour than the common perennial species ; like that it varies much 
in height, being sometimes even three feet high, and having several erect 
