HOLCU8 LANATUS. 87 



HOLCUS LANATUS. 



LINNAEUS. SMITH. PARNELL. HOOKER AND ARNOTT. LINDLEY. 



KOCH. HUDSON. WITHERING. HULL. RELHAN. ABBOT. 



SIBTHORP. CURTIS. DICKSON. REICHENBACH. BABINGTON. WILLDENOW. 



KNAPP. SINCLAIR. LEERS. HOST. SCHREBER. 



PLATE XXVII. 



The Meadow Soft Grass. 

 Hokus To extract. Lanatus Woolly. 



A PRODUCTIVE Grass, easily cultivated, yet cattle do not like it. 

 -L^\- It seems to delight to grow in shady situations, especially in light 

 moist soils. 



Common throughout Great Britain and Scotland, France, Italy, and 

 Germany. 



This very beautiful Grass has an upright circular stem, bearing four 

 or five pale green, flat, broad, acute, soft, hairy leaves, with soft downy 

 sheaths, the upper sheath extending considerably beyond its leaf; 

 inflated and having at its apex an obtuse membranous sheath. Joints 

 four, hairy. Inflorescence compound-panicled, green, red, or pink in 

 colour. Panicle upright, triangular in shape, compact and close when 

 young, and spreading when more mature. Branches hairy. Spikelets 

 pendulous. Two florets, the upper one awned. Calyx consisting of 

 two hairy membranous glumes, the upper one oblong, tipped with a 

 minute bristle. Keel hairy, having a green rib on either side; lower 

 glumes crescent-shaped, and destitute of lateral ribs. Two equal-sized 

 paleae. Upper floret smallest, and elevated on a lengthy naked foot- 

 stalk, having a dorsal awn of about half the length of the palea, 

 commencing a little beneath the apex, and when mature curved in 

 the form of a fish-hook. The apex of the awn is rough, but the lower 

 two thirds is quite smooth. Length from twelve to twenty-four inches. 

 Root perennial and fibrous. 



