DARNEL 157 



The Wild Oat is a sand plant and addicted to sand soil. 



Barley leaf stripe, Pyrenopkora trichostoma, attacks the Wild Oat. 



Two beetles, Lema Cyanella, L. melanopa, and a fly, Oscinus 

 pusilla, infest it. 



Avena, Pliny, is the Latin for oat, and the second Latin name 

 means insipid. 



The plant is called Wild Aits, Drake, Flaver, Haver, Kentish 

 Longtails, Wild Oat, Poor Oats, Sowlers, Uncorn. 



The awn is hygroscopic, and has been used for artificial hygro- 

 meters and for fly-fishing. 



The seeds lie dormant in the soil for a long time, retaining vitality 

 a long time. The plant is the origin of the cultivated Oat, A. saliva. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



335. Avena fat2ia, L. Stem tall, leaves bright green, spikelets 

 drooping at length, panicle spreading, hairs at base of the flower. 



Darnel (Lolium temulentum, L.) 



At the present day this pernicious plant is found in the North 

 Temperate Zone in Europe, N. Africa, W. Siberia, and India, and 

 has been introduced in N. America. Watson states that it has been 

 found in sixty-four counties, but does not cite them, and says only: 

 " It seems needless to enumerate counties and authorities in detail 

 for a plant so uncertain of being refound in the same places (fields 

 or even farms) from year to year". It is found as far north as the 

 Shetlands, and in the Channel Islands and Ireland. 



Regarded as a colonist by Watson, this plant is a very widespread 

 grass, in most parts of the country growing on cultivated land, and 

 coming up like other weeds spontaneously in cornfields as well as in 

 waste places, being found sometimes with foreign plants, as well as in 

 refuse thrown out at a mill in ballast, &c. 



The stem is erect, with much the same habit as Rye, rough, with 

 hairs turned back. There are no underground stems as in the latter. 

 The membrane is quite short. 



The panicle is a spike, with long-awned spikelets, of which there 

 are six, less than the glume, or equal to it, the lower palea or inner 

 glume being awned. The empty glume is longer, the upper glume 

 divided into two halfway. The flowering glumes are swollen when 

 in fruit. 



Darnel is 18 in. in height. The flowers are in bloom in June 

 up to August. It is annual, and the seeds are poisonous. 



