154 Wife SEEDS OF THE GRASSES. 



the small grain, yellow, shining, flat, ovate, frequently with 

 traces of the stigma. The clinging of the spikelets is characteris- 

 tic, those of the substitute, slender foxtail (Alopecurus agrestis), 

 having no hairs on the keel and always falling apart, besides 

 being a trifle larger. Fiorin seed is also easily distinguishable 

 in a mixture. It is one of the smallest of grass seeds, like a small 

 oat a sixteenth of an inch in length and as thin as a hair, grooved, 

 contracted at the base, yellow corn-coloured with whitish tips, 

 the paleae grey with no awn or basal hairs, but as the grain is 

 readily freed from them they are not always present. 



The seeds of the remaining ten of these customary pasture 

 grasses are not so easily described, though some of them are 

 instantly distinguishable. The largest is that of cock's-foot, 

 which is about a quarter of an inch long, the light, faded, straw- 

 coloured paleae enclosing the grain having a short awn ; they are 

 flattened at the sides, ribbed, bristly on the keel, and curved 

 at the tip ; the fragment of the rachilla is broad and flat and 

 tapers downwards as it rises from the base of the inner palea ; 

 the grain is yellowish white, fusiform, narrowing towards the 

 apex more than towards the base, and it is rounded on one side 

 and flat on the other, whereas the other grains in this group have 

 no flat side, being either concave or convex. 



The seed of dog's-tail is of the same type as those of the 

 fescues but differs from them in its colour. It varies in its 

 proportions, being much slenderer in some cases than in others. 

 As a rule it is mustard yellow, that being the colour of the outer 

 palea, which is rounded on the back and ends in a long, rough, 

 curved point, the inner palea being pale brown with dark, 

 shining spots ; the rachilla is smooth, short, and tapers downwards, 

 and the grain is ovate, slightly grooved, flattened, and pointed 

 at both ends. 



The grain of the fescues has a very long hilum ; that of the 

 poas has a rounded hilum. In the fescues the grain is almost 

 club-shaped in form, whereas that of the poas is ovate. Festuca 

 elatiov and F. pratensis are apparently forms of the same species ; 

 in both the rachilla has a flat, projecting top, but in F. ovina 

 and its varieties the rachilla is obliquely truncate, concave at 



