158 GRASSES OF BRITAIN. 



Setaria Veuticillata. 

 Reflex Bristle-Grass. 



Plate LXIX. 



Specific Character. — Involucral bristles, with reflexed teeth. 



Description. — Root annual, fibrous, producing many stems from 

 six inches to two feet in length. Stems erect, hollow, mostly branched 

 below, rough above, bearing four or five leaves with smooth, striated, 

 sheaths ; the upper sheath shorter than its leaf. Ligule of upper 

 sheath, short, blunt, fringed, the length about equal to one-third of 

 its breadth. Joints usually four, the upper situated generally above 

 the centre of the stem, and mostly covered by the second sheath. 

 Leaves flat, lanceolate, rough, especially on the margins. Infiores- 

 cence simple panicled, the branches very short, the rachis rough. 

 Spikelets dorsally compressed, crowded on all sides, nearly sessile, ar- 

 ranged in clusters, furnished at the base with stout, rough, involucral 

 bristles rather longer than the spikelets ; each bristle strongly toothed, 

 the teeth pointing downwards. Each spikelet composed of two glumes 

 and two florets, having a purplish tinge. Glumes.^ two very unequal, 

 the lowermost considerably the smaller, broad and pointed, the up- 

 per glume of an oblong form, smooth, five-ribbed. Lowermost floret 

 barren, of one palea, very similar in size and appearance to the large 

 glume, and by some authors has been considered as a third glume. 

 Upper floret of two palese, the outer the larger, concave, three-rib- 

 bed, the surface minutely dotted in longitudinal lines ; the inner 

 palea flattish, folded, and also minutely dotted. Styles two, distinct, 

 long and suiooth, arising from the summit of the ovarium. Stigmas 

 short and leathery. Stamens three. Anthers dark-purple. Seeds 

 hard and polished. 



Obs. — Setaria vcrticillata is distinguished from Setaria viridis in 

 the involucral bristles, not being twice the length of the spikelet, and 

 furnished with teeth directed downwards, (see Fig. 2.); — whereas in 



Setaria vcHicillaia, Beaiiv., Koch, Hooker, Lincl., Bab., Kuntli. ranicum vcrticiUa- 

 n««(, Linn., Smith, Knapp. Pennisetum ixrikUlaium, Brown. 



