RUSHY WHEAT GRASS 219 



leaves involute, ribbed, ligule blunt, panicle contracted, lower palea 

 blunt, spikelets compressed. 



Rushy Wheat Grass (Agropyron junceum, Beauv.) 



This is a common maritime grass, found in the N. Temperate Zone 

 in Europe, N. Africa, and N. America. It is found in every maritime 

 county in Great Britain, except S. Lines, Westmorland, Kirkcudbright, 

 Linlithgow, S. Perth, N. Perth; but there is some doubt as to what 

 was meant by the name in early days, so that it is uncertain if all 

 the older stations are correct. It is thus found from the Orkneys to 

 Devon and Kent, and in Ireland and the Channel Islands. 



The Rushy Wheat Grass is a characteristic shore or sand plant, 

 which helps to form a regular botanical association with Lyme and 

 Marram Grass, all of which grow on sanely shores and cover a wide 

 area, extending from high-water level to some distance inland. 



The stems are bluish-green, prostrate below, with creeping roots, 

 then ascending, smooth, with thick leaves, with the margin rolled 

 inwards, hairy on the ribs below, with smooth sheaths, and a short 

 ligule. 



The panicle is a loose, stout, curved spike, with 4-5 flowered 

 spikelets, with glumes with 9 nerves, and without awns. The rachis 

 of the panicle is smooth, fragile, separating above each spikelet. The 

 spikelets are distant, glossy, pale, thick, the flowering glumes are 

 slightly nerved, the empty glumes strongly so, and blunt. 



The plant is i ft. to 18 in. high. It is in flower in July and August 

 The plant is perennial, propagated by soboles or underground creeping 

 shoots. 



The floral symmetry resembles that of Darnel, and both are 

 anemophilous in their mode of pollination, the stigma maturing before 

 the anthers. 



The fruit is light, and adhering to the palea, which has keels 

 fringed with hairs, and it is easily dispersed by the wind. 



This grass is a halophyte or salt-lover living in a saline soil, and 

 also a sand plant living in sand soil. 



It is attacked by a Smut, Ustilago hypodytes. 



Agropyron, Gaertner, or Agropyrum, is from agros, field, and 

 -buros, wheat, and the second Latin name refers to the rush-like or 

 jointed stem. This plant is called Bent, Bentles. 



The name Bentles is given to low, sandy, flattish land on the sea- 

 shore of Suffolk, where nothing but this coarse grass grows. It is 



