358 POACE.E. 



like panicle or head, rachilla articulate above the lower glumes, 

 slender, produced above the perfect floret. Empty glumes 2, 

 linear, clothed with fine hairs; floral glume narrow, smooth, 

 delicately membranous, terminating in 2 slender awns, and bearing 

 a long bent and twisted awn below the apex; palea narrow, hyaline, 

 2-keeled. Stamens 3. Styles short, distinct. Grain narrow, 

 scarcely enclosed by the glume and palea, 



A soft annual grass with short flat blades. 



Species 1, found in western and southwestern Europe and 

 northern Africa. 



1. L. ovATUs L. 1. c. Hare's-tail Geass. 



Culms 15-25 cm. high, pubescent, branching below. Sheaths 

 soft, inflated; ligule pubescent, 1-1.5 mm. long. Spikes whitish, 

 2-4 cm. long. Empty glumes threadlike, plumose, 8-10 mm. long; 

 floral glume 3.5 mm. long, bristles of the same length; the awn, 

 2—4 times as long as its glume. 



Often cultivated for ornament. 



Tribe IX.— AVENE^. 



Spikelets 2- to several-flowered (1-flowered in Anisopogon)^ 

 flowers perfect or one of them stamiuate, in ojjen or spikelike pan- 

 icles. Empty glumes often persistent, usually longer than the 

 florets ; rachilla bearing tufts of hairs under the floral glumes and 

 usually produced above the upper one; awn of the floral glume dor- 

 sal, or near the apex between the lobes, more or less twisted and 

 bent; palea 2-keeled. Style short or none; stigmas feathery. 

 Grain furrowed with embryo small, enclosed in the floral glume 

 and palea, adherent to the palea or free. 



This tribe has been very generally recognized and very little 

 modified for a long time past. 



A. Spikelets 2-flowered, rachilla not prolonged 74 



B. Spikelets 2- to several-flowered, rachilla prolonged above 



the upper flower (a) 



a. Spikelets deciduous as a whole, 2-flowered, lower one 



perfect, awnless, upper one awned, usually staminate. 73 



