H4 



THE GENERA AND THEIR SPECIES. 



Milium. Plate i. AGROSTIDE/E. 



2. effusum 60 in. Spreading Millet. Awnless ; branches 

 of panicle long and distant. 



Shady woods, ranging throughout the Northern Hemisphere. 

 June and July. Root perennial, rootstock creeping, stoloniferous 

 and tufted. Stem erect, slender, leafy, tall, smooth and glossy. 

 Leaves linear-lanceolate, tapered and reversed at base, so that 

 the upper side is really the under side, short, ribless, keel 



prominent, pale green. Sheaths 

 small, striated, uppermost longer 

 than its leaf ; ligule square. Panicle 

 large, light, loose and spreading, 

 branches long, slender, horizontal 

 or deflexed. Spikelets numerous, 

 ovate, small, with only one floret. 

 Glumes nearly equal, broad, con- 

 cave, not keeled, three-ribbed and 

 dotted. Outer palea almost as large 

 as outer glume, pointed, shining, 

 indurated, adherent to grain ; inner 

 palea almost as long as outer palea 

 Spikeiet. For Floret see p. 43. and similarly indurated. 



Variety — 

 M. scabrum 36 in. Stem and leaves rough. 



The curious reversal of the leaf at its base is shown by the 

 stomata being present only upon the original upper side. It 

 is one of the tallest and handsomest of our woodland grasses. 

 In the shade the florets are green, in the sunshine they are purple ; 

 in the shade it grows tall, in the open it is stunted. Its produce 

 is very light in proportion to its bulk, and not very nutritious. 

 Birds are so fond of its seed that its cultivation has been suggested 

 where game is preserved to save the cornfields, the seed being 

 scattered round the roots of bushes and raked in with a few 

 decayed leaves thrown over it. It is not the cultivated millet 

 which is Pant cum miliaceum, quite a different plant. 



