102 



THE GENERA AND THEIR SPECIES. 



Hierochloe borealis. 

 Spikelet. For Floret see p. 64. 



pointed, smooth. Outer palea as 

 long as glumes, five-ribbed, hairy, 

 keel rough ; inner palea of upper- 

 most floret with one keel, inner 

 palea of lower florets with two 

 keels. Two stamens in uppermost- 

 floret, three stamens in the other 

 florets ; filaments long. 



This sweet - scented grass, 

 though common in Northern Scan- 

 dinavia, is found in these islands 

 in a wild state only in Scotland, 

 where it is very rare. 



Holcus. Plate xv. AVENEM. 



4$.lanatus 24 in. Woolly Soft Grass. Awn from outer 

 palea curved like a hook. 



46. mollis 24 in. Soft Grass. Awn from outer palea 



straight and long. 



45. H. lanatus. Meadows, Europe and Russian Asia. 

 July and August. Root perennial, prominently tufted, not 

 creeping. Stems several, erect, leafy, woolly, with four nodes ; 

 nodes without a ring of hairs ; shoot with one row of leaves. 

 Leaves rolled in bud, flat, broad, thin, soft, finely ribbed above, 

 keel prominent below, woolly, greyish. Sheaths white with red 

 veins, woolly, tumid, uppermost longer than leaf ; ligule short, 

 oblong and hairy. Panicle spreading when in bloom, dense, 

 branches in pairs unequal in length, purplish. Spikelets with 

 two florets, upper male only, lower perfect, pendulous. Glumes 

 unequal, dotted or downy, inner glume the broader and slightly 

 awned. Outer palea shorter than glumes, blunt at apex, hairy 

 at base, glossy ; outer palea of upper floret with awn curved like 

 a fish-hook under the outer glume, and rough for a third of its 

 length from the apex ; inner palea nearly as long as outer palea, 

 obtuse, edges hairy. 



