102 HOLCUS. 



CI>ASS LM. Oft£XA IX^ 



GENUS XXVIII. HOLCUS. Linn. Soft Grass. 



Gen. Char. Panicle loose. Spikelets two-flowered. Glumes near]/ 

 equal, longer than the florets; lower floret perfect and awnlessj 

 upper with stamens only, and awned. Fruit coated with the in- 

 durated glumelles. — Named oA>cof, from iXxw, to draiv or extract ; 

 on account of the property which this, or some other grass formerly 

 bearing this name, was supposed to possess in the drawing of 

 wounds and thorns from out the flesh. 



1. //. mollis, Linn. (Fig. 128.) creeping Soft-grass. Glumes acumi- 

 nate; upper floret with a jointed awn extending beyond the 

 glumes; joints of the stem with tufts of hairs ; root with creeping 

 underground stems. 



English Botany, t. 1170. — English Flora, vol. i. p. 108. — Lindley^ 

 Synopsis, p. 306. — Hooker, British Flora, vol. i. p. 42. — Sinclair, Hort. 

 Gram. Woburn. p. 165. 



Root fibrous, downy, with creeping underground stems, which put 

 out whorls of fibres from their numerous joints. Stem from one to 

 three feet high, bent at the base, smooth and finely striated, leafy joints 

 clothed with thick short hairs, and sometimes the whole plant is slightly 

 downy. Leaves linear lanceolate, roughish. Sheaths striated, some- 

 what inflated roughish, the upper one much the longest. Ligula 

 obtuse, mostly turn. Inflorescence an erect branched panicle, close 

 before flowering, afterwards spreading, its branches slender and downy. 

 Sjnkelets numerous, pale green, sometimes purplish. Glumes nearly 

 equal lanceolate, with a tapering point longer than the florets, the 

 outer valve with a strong green roughish keel, the inner with a keel 

 and two lateral ribs. Florets a pale green, ovate lanceolate, the loicer 

 one nearly sessile, smooth and shining, sometimes with a few scattered 

 hairs, containing both stamens and pistils, the tipper one elevated on 

 a short hairy stalk, surrounded at the base with a tuft of short white 

 shining hairs, generally more hairy, containingstaraens only, the outer 

 valve with a jointed awn arising from near the extremity and extending 

 beyond the glumes. Anthers yellow. Seed small, inclosed in the 

 hardened glumelles. 



Habitat. — Pastures, hedges, and waste sandy places, frequent. 



Perennial ; flowering in July. 



This plant, from the experiments of Sinclair, contains a large portion 

 of nutritive matter, but the small quantity and lateness of herbaga 

 which it produces, together with the poor sandy soil in which it delights 

 to grow, renders it one of the least valuable pasture grasses, and especially 

 as cattle will never eat it unless from extreme necessity. The long 

 spreading underground stems, are extremely troublesome and diflicult 

 to be expelled from light arable lands when they have once established 



