205 



LOLIUM MULTIFLORUM. 



Lowe. Hookee and Aenott. Koch, 

 plate lxvii. b. 



Lolium Italicum, Beaun. Babington. 



" perenne, var. Italicum, Paenell. 



Tlie Bearded Rye-Grass^ or Italian Rye- Grass. 



Lolium — Darnel. Multiflorum — Many-flowered. 



Supposed to have been introduced into England from Italy. 



Stem upright, rough, and striated, bearing four or five 

 lanceolate, flat, acute leaves, with harsh sheaths, upper one 

 longer than its leaf. Inflorescence spiked. Spike from five 

 to eight inches long. Spikelets from fourteen to twenty in 

 number, composed of one glume, and from seven to eleven 

 awned florets, the terminal one having two glumes. Glume 

 linear-lanceolate. Florets of two equal-sized paleaj, five-ribbed. 

 Styles two. Stigmas lengthy and plumose. Filaments three. 

 Anthers lengthy, narrow, and notched at either extremity. 

 Length from twenty-five to sixty inches. Root perennial and 

 fibrous. 



Flowers at the commencement of July. 



A most valuable agricultural Grass, when cultivated on a 

 rich deep soil. 



Var. Suhmuticum. — With large spikelets and short awns. 



Var. Ramosum. — Branched. 



The specimen illustrated was gathered at Beeston, near 

 Nottingham. 



