672 GRAMINE.E. (GRASS FAMILY.) 



* * No obvious running rootstocks, glabrous, or the flat and roughish leaves some' 

 times hairy above; glumes as well as fluiuers mostly aivned or awn-pointed. 



3. A. violaceum, Lange. Spike short, dense, strict and rigid, usually 

 tinged with violet or purple ; spikelets 3 - 5-flowered ; glumes conspicuously 5- 

 nerved, rather abruptly narrowed into a cusp or short awn. (Triticum viola- 

 ceum, Hornem.) Alpine region of the White Mts., L. Superior, north and 

 westward. (Eu.) Passing into a variety with longer usually pale nar- 

 row spikes and attenuate often long-awned glumes, which sometimes ap- 

 proaches A. caninum. N. Brunswick, White Mts., N. H., Penn. (Porter), L. 

 Superior, and westward. 



4. A. caninum, R. & S. (AWNED WHEAT-GRASS.) Spike usually more 

 or less nod din//, at least in fruit, rather dense (3-6' long); spikelets 3-5- 

 flowered ; glumes 3-5-nerved; awns straight or somewhat bent or spreading, 

 fully twice the length of the palet. (Triticum caninum, L.) Sparingly natu- 

 ralized in cultivated ground and meadows. Indigenous along our northern 

 borders, and westward. (Eu.) 



5. A. tenenirn, Vasey. Culms 1-3 high; leaves narrow; spike very 

 narrow, 2 - 7' long ; spikelets 3 - 5-flowered ; glumes short-acuminate. Minn, 

 to Kan., and very common westward. 



73. LEPTURUS, R. Br. 



Spikelets 1 -2-flowered, solitary and alternate upon the opposite sides of a 

 narrow spike, sessile and appressed in the concave joints. Empty glumes 

 transverse, narrow, rigid, 5-nerved, the flowering much shorter, thin and hya- 

 line. Low annuals, branching at the base, with narrow leaves and rigid 

 often curved spikes. (Name from \eirr6s, narrow, and ovpd, tail, or spike.) 



L. INCURVATUS, Triu. Much branched, decumbent, 6' high or less ; spikes 

 terminal and lateral, 1-4' long, the base included in the broad sheath. 

 Borders of brackish marshes, Md. to S. Va., and ou ballast northward. (Nat. 

 from Eu.) 



74. H (5 R D E U M, Tourn. BARLEY. (PL 11.) 



Spikelets 1 -flowered, with an awl-shaped rudiment on the inner side, three 

 at each joint of the rhachis of a terminal spike, but the lateral ones usually 

 imperfect or abortive, and short-stalked. Empty glumes side by side in front 

 of the spikelets, 6 in number, forming a kind of involucre, slender and awn- 

 pointed or bristle-form. Flowering glume and palet herbaceous, the former 

 (anterior) convex, loug-awned from the apex. Stamens 3. Grain oblong, 

 commonly adherent. Spike often separating into joints. Ours annuals or 

 biennials, or scarcely perennial. (The ancient Latin name.) 



1. H. jubatum, L. (SQUIRREL-TAIL GRASS.) (PI. 11, fig. 1, 2.) Low; 

 lateral flowers abortive, on a short pedicel, short-awned ; the perfect flower 

 bearing a capillary awn (2' long) about equalling the similar capillary glumes, 

 all spreading. Sandy sea-shore, upper Great Lakes, and westward. June. 



2. H. pratense, Iluds. Low (6-18' high); lateral flowers imperfect or 

 neutral, awuless or merely pointed ; perfect flower with awn as long as those 

 of the glumes (3-6") ; spike linear, 1-2' long. Plains, especially in saline 

 soil, Ohio to 111. and westward ; also sparingly introduced, Va., and south- 

 ward along the coast. May, June. (Eu.) 



