﻿GRASSES OF SCOTLAND. 135 



men cultivated in the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, obtained from 

 Mr Don himself. 



89. Triticum caninum. * 

 Bearded Wheat- Grass. 



Specific Characters. — Root fibrous. Stem smooth. Awn longer 

 than the palea. Leaves not hairy on the inner surface. (Plate 

 LXII.) 



Description. — It grows from two to four feet high. The root is 

 perennial, fibrous. Stem erect, round, smooth and slender ; bearing 

 four or five leaves with smooth striated sheaths ; the upper sheath 

 longer than its leaf, crowned with a very short obtuse ligule. Joints 

 six, smooth and darkish. Leaves polished, of a darkish green, broad, 

 lanceolate and acute ; the upper leaf smaller than those below, rough- 

 ish on both surfaces, but more so on the inner surface. Inflorescence 

 spiked. Spike long and slender, about one-tenth the length of the 

 stem, with the margins of the rachis roughish. Spikelets sessile, of 

 an oval form, arranged in two row r s on the zig-zag rachis ; of four or 

 five awned florets. Calyx of two nearly equal glumes (Fig. 1) ; 

 roughish, awned, three-ribbed, and somewhat hairy, (Fig. 4.) Florets 

 of two palese (Fig. 2), the outer palea of lowermost floret equal in 

 length to the glume, slightly roughish to the touch, five-ribbed, more 

 or less hairy, furnished with a long slender rough awn, longer than 

 the palea, and arising from the very summit. Inner palea about 

 equal in length to the outer palea, membranous, with two green mar- 

 ginal ribs delicately fringed. 



Obs. — This species is readily distinguished from all the others in 

 the awn of the outer palea being longer than the palea, and the glumes 

 of the calyx distinctly three-ribbed. (See Fig. 4.) 



Triticum caninum is distinguished from Triticum sylvaiicum in 

 the spikelets being much shorter ; the whole plant much taller and 

 containing many more spikelets ; glumes three-ribbed ; inner palea 

 flat at the summit ; — whereas in T. sylvaticum the large glume is 

 seven-ribbed, and the inner palea rounded at the summit. 



From Triticum repens in the root being fibrous ; glumes three- 



* Triticum caninum, Koch, Smith, Hooker, GreviUe, Lindley. 



