STOCK-KILLING PLANTS 3 



Hordeum jubatum. The squirrel -tail grass, or wild barley, is found 

 widely distributed in North America being an annual, or a winter annual. 

 The flowers are arranged in a dense spike, each consisting of a number of i- 

 flowered spikelets, three occurring at each joint. The central spikelet has 

 the perfect flower and produces one seed, while the lateral spikelets are 

 reduced to awns and together with the subulate, rigid glumes and the awned 

 lemma of the fertile flower simulate a bristly involucre at each joint of 

 the rhachis. At maturity, the joints fall with the spikelets attached. 



It has been recognized for some time that the barbed spikelets of this 

 species of Hordeum, along with perhaps two other species, act injuriously 

 in a mechanical way, causing deep ulcerations, or sores, of the tongue and 

 lips of cattle and horses with the awns buried deeply in the tissues. 

 They are frequently found between the teeth, where they cause suppura- 

 tion of the gums and ulceration of the bones of the jaw. 



Stipa capillata, S. comata, S. setigera, S. spartea. The first species 

 is indigenous to Russia; the second, known as needle grass, is distributed 

 in western Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, Oregon, California and Arizona. The 

 third species, known as porcupine grass, is widely distributed in western 

 North America, while S. setigera is found in Uruguay and other South 

 American countries. The species of Stipa are perennial grasses with i- 

 flowered spikelets with bristle-tipped glumes. The lemmas are hard, 

 terminating in a twisted awn, and these lemmas tightly inclose the seed 

 at maturity. This twisted awn is very hygroscopic, twisting up in dry 

 weather, and untwisting, when the air is moist. When such an awn with 

 its pointed, hard, sharp point below becomes entangled in the wool of sheep 

 the pointed fruit by the gimlet-like motion of its spirally twisted, some- 

 times feathery awn bores into the skin and the flesh of the animal by the 

 hygroscopic movements of the awn. The entrance of a large number of 

 these barbs into the skin and underlying tissues produce an inflammation 

 that is sometimes followed by the death of the animal. The Uruguayan 

 species (S. setigera) injures the eyes of sheep, producing intense keratitis 

 often followed by inflammation of the cornea and ultimate blindness, so 

 that the sheep, thus injured, are unable to find their food and die of starva- 

 tion and thirst. 



Aegagropilae and Phytobezoars. These two words connote the same 

 idea as that of hair balls. . An aegagropila is a hair ball found in the 

 stomach and intestines of some ruminants, as the goat alyaypos, the wild 

 goat -f- pila, a ball), formed by the goat, or other animal licking the hair 



