56 



GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 



two plants are not even very closely related, but belong to quite 

 distinct tribes in the Grass Family, and each comes true from its 

 own seed. But Chess seeds, when buried in the soil, retain their 

 vitality for years, and their coming up in a field where clean grain 

 had been sown might be thus accounted for. When sown with 

 spring crops it often fails to mature 

 its seeds, and is therefore most fre- 

 quently found growing with the fall- 

 sown crops of rye and winter wheat. 

 Grain containing Chess is somewhat 

 difficult to clean, and if ground with 

 wheat the flour is dark-colored and 

 has a narcotic quality which ruins it 

 commercially. Consequently such 

 wheat is very sharply docked in the 

 market. It is a most prolific weed. 

 Professor Hunt, of Cornell Univer- 

 sity, sowed one pound of it on one- 

 twentieth of an acre and reaped 

 ninety-nine pounds of seed ; and as 

 they are quite small and light, there 

 are nearly as many seeds in a pound 

 as there are wheat kernels in a 

 bushel. (Fig. 26.) 



Stems two to three feet tall, 

 erect, smooth, and simple. Sheaths 

 smooth, strongly nerved, shorter 

 than the internodes. Leaves three 

 to ten inches long, slightly hairy 

 above but smooth beneath, and flat. 

 Panicle loose and open, its branches 

 somewhat drooping. Spikelets smooth, containing five to fifteen 

 seeds, about a quarter-inch long, the lemmas adhering like oats, 

 but distinguished from that grain by smaller size and darker 

 color; they are also somewhat thicker and inrolled at the 

 margins ; awns, when present, usually short and straight but 

 weak and soft, sometimes more or less flexuose. 



FIG. 26. Chess or Cheat (Bro- 

 mus secalinus). X j. 



