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Glumes, usually three, the outer one, next the rhachis, very minute, 

 and sometimes obsolete, the second empty, with five prominent nerves, 

 armed with short, rigid, hooked bristles, the third or flowering glume 

 and enclosed palea thin and hyaline. 



Styles distinct, slender. 



Grain enclosed in the thin palea and glume, and rigid outer glume, 

 free from them. 



1. Lappago racemosa, Willd. 



Botanical name. — Lappago, from the Latin word for a plant with a 

 burr. The Fuller's Teazle (Dipsacus) is one of the plants supposed 

 to have been meant by the Ancients, though there are probably 

 others. More indirectly, the name is from the Latin Lappa, the well- 

 known Burdock of Europe (Arctium lappa), the burry fruits of which 

 naughty school boys have collected from remote antiquity to put down 

 one another's backs or to throw at the hair of school-girls. The 

 burry appearance of the spikelets of our plant will be seen from the 

 figure ; racemosa, with infloresence in the form of a raceme. 



Synonym. — Tragus racemosa, Desf. Authorities differ as to whom 

 belongs the credit of this species. Index Kewensis gives Scopoli, 

 Duthie gives Hall, Bentham and most Continental botanists quote 

 Desfontaines. 



Vernacular name. — The " Small Burr-grass," in contradistinction 

 to the " Large Burr-grass" (Cenchrus australis). 



Where figured. — Duthie, Hackel, Agricultural Gazette. 



Botanical description (B. Fl., vii, 507). — An annual, spreading on 

 the ground or ascending to from 6 inches to 1 foot in height, usually 

 glabrous, except a few rigid cilia bordering the leaves. 



Leaves flat, with loose sheaths. 



Ligula small, split into cilia. 



Spikelike panicle or raceme, 2 to 4 inches long, cylindrical and narrow, the very- 

 short peduncles bearing on their end two sessile narrow spikelets about 2 lines 

 long, falling off together with the peduncle as little burrs. 



The second glumes, with their hooked prickles, forming the principal part of the 

 spikelets, the acuminate, almost aristate, fruiting glumes remaining enclosed 

 within them. 



Value as a fodder. — A useful grass for winter and early spring ; 

 stock are fond of it. It is quite a small grass, usually not of much 

 importance by itself for this reason, and also because it is not one of 

 our most abundant grasses, but useful to supplement other fodder 

 grasses. Bailey speaks of it as " a good little grass for winter." 



Mr. W. Coldstream, quoted by Duthie, states that it is common at 

 Hissar, India ; is too small to stock, but, being " a very nutritious 

 grass," it is much grazed in the rains. Mr. Symonds states that 

 cattle will not eat it, and Mr. Lowrie, of Ajmere, India, condemns it 

 as a bad fodder grass. 



No chemical analysis appears to have been made of this grass, but 

 with us it is believed to be nutritious, and certainly both cattle and 

 sheep eat it readily enough. 



Its burrs are not usually complained of by the wool-grower. 



