LOLIUM MULTIFLORUM. 
Lowr. Hooxrr anp Arnott. Kocn. 
PLATE LXVIT.——B. 
Lolium Italicum, Braun. Basineron. 
*« perenne, var. Italicum, PARNELL. 
The Bearded Rye-Grass, or Italian Rye-Grass. 
Lolium—Darnel. Multiflorum—Many-flowered. 
Supposep to have been introduced into England from Italy. 
Stem upright, rough, and striated, bearing four or five 
lanceolate, flat, acute leaves, with harsh sheaths, upper one 
longer than its leaf. Inflorescence spiked. Spike from five 
to eight inches long. Spikelets from fourteen to twenty in 
number, composed of one glume, and from seven to eleven 
awned florets, the terminal one having two glumes. Glume 
linear-lanceolate. Florets of two equal-sized palez, five-ribbed. 
Styles two. Stigmas lengthy and plumose. Filaments three. 
Anthers lengthy, narrow, and notched at either extremity. 
Length from twenty-five to sixty inches. Root perennial and 
fibrous. 
Flowers at the commencement of July. 
A most valuable agricultural Grass, when cultivated on a 
rich deep soil. 
Var. Submuticum.—With large spikelets and short awns. 
Var. Ramosum.—Branched. 
The specimen illustrated was gathered at Beeston, near 
Nottingham. 
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