193 



TRITICUM JUNCEUM. 



LlNN^US. HOOKEB AND AeNOTT. EoCH. WITHERING. 



Smith. Paenell. Lindley. Geeville. Willdenow. Hull. 



Knapi'. Dickson. Scueader. Host. Oedee. Hudson. Babington. 



Reichenbach. Kunth. Macbeight. Deakin. 



P1,.\TE LXIV. B. 



Agropi/ruin junceum, Lindley. Beauvais. 



The Rushy Sea Wheat-Grass. 



Triticum — Eubbed. Junceum — A rush. 



Triticum. Linnoius. — The Wheat-Grass is represented in Great Britain 

 by five species; they have solitary spikelets, and with two nearly equal- 

 sixed glumes. The British examples are much more diminutive than the 

 annual foreign species, which are cultivated in this country for bread. The 

 name is derived from the Latin tritum, and signifies thrashed or beaten, 

 in allusion to the manner in which the corn is extracted from the ear. 



Found on sandy sea-shores, wliere it is useful in binding 

 the loose sand. It has no agricultural merits. 



Common in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, Ger- 

 many, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, West Asia, and North 

 Africa. 



Stem circular, upright, smooth, and having five or six lengthy 

 smooth glaucous leaves, with smooth somewhat striated sheaths, 

 the upper one shorter than its leaf, and having at its apex a 

 brief membranous ligule. Inflorescence spiked, the spikelets 

 oval in form, sessile, and in two alternate rows on a zigzag 

 smooth rachis. Calyx consisting of two obtuse about equal- 



