BROMUS. 225 



not bestow the charm of contrast, not being a clear or 

 full tint ; as regards colour, the Rough Brome-grass can 

 only boast its own full green. It is a common plant 

 throughout Britain, its bearded spikelets drooping from 

 nearly every hedgerow, especially such as border woods 

 and shady lanes. 



Abroad, it is found in Norway, Sweden, Germany, 

 Switzerland, France, Italy, and Russia. It has no agri- 

 cultural value. 



It flowers in July, or the first week in August, and, 

 like the last species, produces ripe seeds in a month. 



8. Bromus sterilis, Linn. Barren Brome. 



Root annual, small, creeping, fibres capillary ; stein one 

 to two feet high, slender, striated, rough, leafy to the top ; 

 leaves spreading, flat, rather flaccid, narrow, acute, ribbed, 

 rough at the edges, and furnished with a few straggling 

 white hairs ; ligule blunt, ragged ; sheath cylindrical, ribbed, 

 with soft deflexed hairs, upper one equal in length to its 

 leaf; panicle mostly simple, drooping, spreading, light green, 

 or tinged with purple, branches long, slender, rough, occa- 

 sionally divided, the lower ones generally in pairs ; spike- 

 lets lanceolate, pendulous, brownish-green, afterwards dark 

 purple, containing from six to eight florets ; outer glumes 

 unequal, acute; the larger one angular, three-ribbed; the 

 lower one without lateral ribs, and sharply toothed on the 

 upper half of the keel ; flowering glumes longer than the 

 outer ones, seven-ribbed, rough on the back, with a straight 

 awn much longer than the glume itself; palea linear-lan- 

 ceolate, two-thirds the length of the flowering glume, with 

 two green marginal ribs delicately fringed ; ovary egg-shaped, 

 styles growing laterally out of it. 



A frequent ornament of waste places, especially dry, 



Q 



