110 CANE. DARNEL. 



CANE (Arundinaria macrosper.ma) is a perennial grass, 

 with a stem often from thirty to forty feet in height, 

 and flowering in March and April. Leaves linear, green 

 on both sides, smooth ; spikelets seven to ten flow- 

 ered, purple, smooth. In rich soils in southern Illinois, 

 Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, and southward. The stems 

 are extensively used for fishing-rods. 



41. LEPTURUS. 



Flowers in spikes ; rachis jointed ; joints with one 

 spikelet; glumes one or two, growing to the rachis, 

 simple or two-parted. 



SLENDER-TAIL GRASS (Lepturus paniculatus] is found 

 in Illinois ; an annual, flowering in June. Stem one 

 foot high, compressed ; leaves short, rigid ; glumes 

 fixed, rigid, unequal, parallel. Rare. 



42. LOLIUM. Darnel. 



Spikelets many-flowered, solitary on each joint of 

 the continuous rachis, edgewise ; glume only one, and 

 external. 



PERENNIAL RYE GRASS (Loliumperenne). Stem erect, 

 smooth, fifteen inches to two feet high ; root perennial, 

 fibrous; joints four or five, smooth, often purplish; 

 leaves dark green, lanceolate, acute, flat, smooth on the 

 outer surface, and roughish on the inner ; glume much 

 shorter than the spikelet ; flowers six to nine, awnless. 

 Flowers in June. Shown in Fig. 84. Fig. 85 represents 

 a magnified spikelet of this grass. 



It has had the reputation in Great Britain, for many 

 years, of being one of the most important and valuable 

 of the cultivated grasses. It is probably much better 

 adapted to a wet and uncertain climate than to one 

 subject almost annually to droughts, which often con- 



