GRASS FAMILY. 355 



* 



F. elatior, TALLER MEADOW FESCUE, A rather rigid grass of meadows 

 and pastures, nat. from Europe: l-4 high, with green flat leaves, a narrow 

 panicle with short branches apprcs.scd before and after flowering, 5 -10-flowered 

 green spikelets, the lower palet blunt, or acute, or rarely with a short awn. Ij. 



Br6mus, BROME GRASS. Spikelets large, at length drooping in an open 

 panicle, containing 5-10 or more flowers, the lower palet with a short bristle 

 point or an awn from the blunt rounded tip or notch, the upper palet soon adher- 

 ing to the grain. Coarse grasses : two or three wild species are common, and the 

 following are weeds of cultivation, from Europe, or the last cultivated for fodder. 



B. secalinus, COMMON CHESS or CHEAT. Too well known in wheat- 

 fields ; nearly smooth ; panicle open and spreading, even in fruit ; spikelets 

 turgid; flowers laid broadly over each other in the two ranks; lower palet 

 convex on the back, concave within, awnless or short-awned. 



B. racemosus. UPRIGHT CHESS : like the other, but with narrower 

 erect panicle contracted in fruit, lower palet slender-awned, and sheaths some- 

 times hairy. 



B. mollis, SOFT CHESS : like the preceding, but soft-downy, with denser 

 conical-ovate spikelets, and the long-awned lower palet acute. (f) 



B. unioloides, or B. SCHR\I>ERI (CERATOCHLOA UNIOLOIDES) : lately 



much prized for fodder, may be vaiuable 8., is rather stout and broad-leaved, 

 with drooping large spikelets much flattened laterally, so that the lower palets 

 are almost conduplicate and keeled on the back. 2/ 



Briza maxima, LARGE QUAKING GRASS or RATTLESNAKE-GRASS, is 

 sometimes cult, in gardens for ornament, from Eu. : a low grass, with the 

 hanging many-flowered ovate-heart-shaped spikelets somewhat like those of 

 Bromus, but pointless, very tumid, purplish, becoming dry and papery, rattling 

 in the wind, whence the common name. 



*- -*- - Grain and Meadow- Grasses, u'ifh a mostly twisted or bent aum on the 

 bark of the lower palet : flowers 2 or 3, or few in the spikeiet, and mostly 

 shorter than the glumes. 



-* Floivers perfect or the uppermost rudimentary. 



Av6na satiya, CULTIVATED OAT, from Old World : soft and smooth, 

 with a loose panicle of large drooping spikelets, the palets investing the grain, 

 one flower with a long twisted awn on the back, the other awnless. 



A. Hilda, SKINLESS OAT, rarely cult, from Old World : has narrower 

 roughish leaves, 3 or 4 flowers i/i the spikeiet, amVgrain loose in the palets. 



A\ . *-*--+-*. One jl nicer perfect aim one sTdminate only. 



Arrenath^rum aven&ceum, OAT-GRASS, or GRASS-OF-THE-ANDES. 

 Rather coarse but soft grass, introduced from Europe into meadows and fields 

 and rather valuable : 2 -4 high, witli flat linear leaves, long and loose panicle, 

 thin and very unequal glumes, including a staminate flower, the lower palet, of 

 which bears a long bent awn below its middle, above this a perfect flower with 

 its lower palet bristle-pointed from near the tip, and above that a rudiment of a 

 third flower. 2/ 



H61CUS lanatus, VELVKT-GRASS, or MEADOW-SOFT-GRAS*. Introduced 

 from Eu. into meadows, not very common, l : }-2 high, well distinguished by 

 its paleness and ve'vety softness, being soft downy all over ; panicle crowded ; 

 the flowers only 2 in the spikeiet, small, rather distant, the lower one perfect 

 and awnless, the upper staminate and with a curved or hooked awn below the 

 tip of its lower palet. 2/ 



2. Spikel-ls cither strict!// s/)ik<d or in a panicle so contracted and dcn*<* as fo 

 imitate a spike. (Here would be svut/ftt one sfM-cii'S of C&\Aii\Agrostis and 

 one of Phalaris, for which see above, p. 354, 355.) 



* Aim borne Ion- down on the back of one or two paJets. 



Anthoxanthum odoratum, RWKKT-SCEVTKD \ T Kn\AL-GRAS/^.iiat. 

 from Eu. : the plant which gives delicious fragrance to drying hay (the other, 



