94 FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 
VIRGINIA LYME GRASS (Elymus virginicus L.) 
Plate 16; Seed, Plate 27, Fig. 28. 
Other English names: Bald Rye Grass, Wheat Grass, Terrell Grass. 
Botanical description: Virginia Lyme Grass is perennial with 
a very short rootstock and therefore grows in dense tufts. The 
stems, which are generally from two to four feet high, are numerous 
and densely crowded, smooth and rather slender, leafy to the top 
and often tinged with purple. The leaves are long and broad, the 
colour varying from bright green to glaucous. The lower leaves 
soon become brown and dry and at flowering time are usually all 
dead. The flowers are in a spikelike inflorescence. The spikelets 
are not solitary at each joint, as in the genus Agropyron, but are 
generally in pairs, making the inflorescence dense and crowded. 
Each spikelet has two sterile glumes at its base and there are con- 
sequently four sterile glumes at each joint. They are thick and 
clawlike, bent below, and make a characteristic mark by which 
Virginia Lyme can be easily distinguished from other Lyme Grasses. 
A spikelet contains two or three flowers, each enclosed within two 
narrow glumes. The outer flowering glume, the lemma, is awnless 
or with a short awn at its tip. When the awn is present the whole 
spike somewhat resembles that of rye; when it is absent the spike 
is more like that of wheat—hence the names Bald Rye Grass and 
Wheat Grass. 
Geographical distribution: Virginia Lyme Grass is indigenous 
to practically the whole North American continent. In Canada it 
extends from Nova Scotia to the Rocky Mountains. 
Habitat: It occurs on river banks, along borders of woods and 
thickets, etc. It is rather common in open woodlands but rare in 
open ground. This is why it is more frequent in the Maritime 
Provinces, Quebec and Ontario than in the Prairie Provinces. 
Cultural conditions: Virginia Lyme Grass stands drought 
and severe cold without injury and makes quite a vigorous growth 
on light, dry soil where many other grasses give a poor return. 
Agricultural value: Its agricultural value is rather doubtful. 
It is nutritive and succulent when young, but it quickly loses its 
