The Book of Grasses 



occasional downiness of the lower sheaths, and in the long-awned 

 scales. 



Purple Wheat-grass {Agropyron hifldrum), a mountain species, 

 is of smaller growth, bearing shorter leaves and smaller spikes, the 

 latter usually tinged with purple. 



Couch-grass. Quick-grass. Quitch-grass. Devil-grass. 

 Witch-grass. Agropyron repens (L.) Beauv. 



Perennial, with running rootstocks. Naturalized from Europe. 



Stem 1-4 ft. tall, erect. Ligule very short. Leaves 4'-i2' long, 2"-^" 

 wide, flat, smooth on lower surface, rough above. 



Spike 2'-8' long, narrow. Spikelets 3-6-flowered, 4"- 10" long, green, 

 solitary, sessile on alternate notches of the rachis, side of each spike- 

 let placed against the rachis. Outer scales acute, or awn-pointed, 

 sometimes obtuse or notched, strongly nerved, about equal; flowering 

 scales acute or short-awned; palets slightly shorter than flowering 

 scales. Stamens 3, anthers large, yellow. A very variable species. 



Fields, cultivated ground, and waste places. June to September. 



Newfoundland to the Northwest Territory, south to Virginia, Ohio, and 

 Iowa. 



BARLEY, SQUIRREL-TAIL GRASS, AND WALL BARLEY 



"First rie and then barlie, the champion saies. 

 Or wheate before barlie, be champion waies: 

 But drink before bread-corn with Middlesex men. 

 Then laie on more compas, and fallow agen." 



Occasionally a few grains of the cultivated barley {Hordeum 

 sativum) are dropped by our waysides, and in midsummer the 

 spike-like heads of this grass appear, rigidly erect, and armed with 

 straight awns which are sometimes half a foot in length. This 

 grain, celebrated by Pliny who called it the most ancient food of 

 older days, is still the most important cereal of the far North, and 

 may be raised nearer the Arctic circle than any other grain, with 

 the exception of rye. 



The early Britons cultivated barley and held barley bread in 

 high esteem, but since a statute in the reign of Edward 1 1 ordered 

 that, "considering that wheate made into malte is much consumed, 

 ordayned that henceforth it should be made of other graine," 

 barley, under force of this ancient edict, has come to be the great 

 brewing grain, and little is now heard of "bannocks o' barley 

 meal." 



238 



