HOLCUS. 185 



is suitable either for pasturage or for hay. Dr. Parnell 

 deposes that it is highly prized on the Continent, and 

 eaten with avidity by all cattle except horses. Its pro- 

 duce is much greater in a clay than in a heathy soil. 

 It is a troublesome and frequent weed in cornfields. 



In a light, dry, richly cultivated soil, this grass is apt 

 to become thoroughly bulbous, and is then called var. 

 bulbosum, and the joints of the stem become downy. 



Abroad this grass is found in Germany, France, Italy, 

 and the United States. 



Genus XX. HOLCUS. 



Gen. Char. Spikelets two-flowered, one floret male, the 

 other perfect ; outer glumes erect, beardless, ovate, com- 

 pressed, enclosing the florets, one of which is elevated on a 

 footstalk ; flowering glumes pointed, that of the male flower 

 bearing an awn upon its back ; palea smaller, awnless ; scale 

 single, cloven, membranous ; ovary ovate ; styles two, hair- 

 like ; stigmas oblong, feathery ; seed ovate, attached to the 

 hardened palea and flowering glumes ; axis of the spikelet 

 smooth. 



1. Helens lanatns, Linn. Common Holcus, 



{Meadow Soft-grass, Sir J. E. Smith.) 



Roots perennial, fibrous, tufted, not creeping ; stems 

 several, one or two feet high, simple, erect, leafy, jointed, 

 clothed with soft, deflexed, dense hairs ; joints four, gene- 

 rally covered with down ; leaves flat, acute, greyish, covered 

 on both sides, but more thickly beneath, with the same 

 kind of down ; sheaths swollen and woolly, the upper one 

 longer than its leaf, the lower ones much shorter ; ligule 

 short and blunt ; panicle erect, compound, dense, downy, 

 hoary, mostly with a purple or rosy tinge ; branches hairy 



