DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME COMMON WEEDS 153 



Soft Chess (Bromus hordeaceus, L.). An erect, usually 

 slender, pubescent annual, growing one to three feet high, 

 with flat leaves and contracted panicles, which are one to 

 three inches long; the three to eight-flowered spikelets 

 are one-half to one inch long, with pubescent glumes; 

 flowering glumes obtuse and with awns somewhat shorter 

 than the glumes; blooms from May to August. Intro- 

 duced and found along railroads, and in the streets of 

 cities, and in fields and waste places in the North ; nearly 

 worthless as a forage plant. 



Downy Brome Grass (Bromus tectorum, L.). A 

 slender, erect, leafy annual seven to twenty-five inches 

 high, with narrow, softly pubescent leaves and open, nod- 

 ding panicles, three to seven inches long; spikelets each 

 five to eight-flowered, with unequal, acuminate-pointed, 

 hairy, empty glumes, and rough or hairy glumes, four to 

 six lines long; awns six to eight lines long; blooming 

 period from June to August. First introduced into the 

 United States from Europe, and is without forage value ; 

 while not greatly troublesome in Iowa or eastward, it has 

 become a serious pest farther west in Utah and Colorado. 



Poison Darnel (Loliutn temulentum, L.). An annual 

 with a smooth, stout stem from two to three feet tall; 

 rough sheaths and a spike from six to twelve inches 

 long; spikelets five to seven-flowered, the sharp-pointed 

 empty glumes as long as the spikelets ; flowering glumes 

 turgid, awned or awnless, and both shorter and broader 

 than in common darnel (L. perenne); blooms from June 

 to August; also called bearded darnel. Found in waste 

 places and cultivated grounds in the wheat-growing sec- 

 tions of the country and Canada. 



Couch Grass or Quack Grass (Agropyron rep ens, (L.) 

 Beauv.). An introduced grass already becoming trouble- 

 some in Iowa ; culms one to three feet high, arising from 

 an extensively creeping, jointed rootstock; sheaths usu- 

 ally smooth ; leaves from four to twelve inches long, 



