Briza, Linn. 



Spikelets many flowered, laterally compressed, panicled ; rhachilla disarticulating 

 above the glumes and between the valves ; florets hermaphrodite, the upper gradually 

 reduced. Glumes scarious or firmly membranous, keeled or boat-shaped or saccate 

 with the back rounded, persistent, 3- to sub-7-nerved, subequal. Valves close, firmly 

 membranous with scarious margins or almost wholly scarious, keeled or boat-shaped 

 or saccate with the back rounded, obtuse, acute, subacuminate or subaristate, 7-9-nerved, 

 outer 3, or all the side-nerves spreading from a common base, rarely 5-nerved with 

 the side-nerves distant at the base. Pales broad, shorter than the valves, 2-keeled, 

 keels often winged. Lodicules 2, obliquely ovate, hyaline, fleshy at the base. Stamens 

 3. Ovary glabrous ; styles short, distinct ; stigmas very slender, loosely plumose, 

 laterally exserted. Grain tightly embraced by the hardened back of the valve and 

 the pale, usually adherent to the latter, concavo-convex to plano-convex, usually 

 dorsally compressed ; hilum basal, small, elliptic oblong or linear ; embryo small. 



Annual or Perennial ; blades flat and rather broad or convolute and narrow, 

 ligules hyaline. Panicle effuse with capillary branchlets and pedicels and nodding 

 spikelets, sometimes reduced to a raceme or straight, contracted or almost spiciform. 



Species about 11 ; four mainly in the Mediterranean region, of which two have 

 been introduced into various temperate countries, one all over temperate Europe and 

 Asia, the rest in South America. 



PLATE 494, 



Briza minor, Linn. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, p. 709). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



Annual, glabrous. — Culms tufted, geniculate, J to 2 feet long, smooth or some- 

 what rough above, 2 to 3-noded ; internodes exserted, at least ultimately ; sheaths 

 loose, smooth, the lower thin, striate ; ligules oblong, 2-3 lines long ; blades linear to 

 lanceolate -linear, acute, 2 to 8 inches, by 1^ to 4|- lines, flat, flaccid, more or less 

 scabrid or almost smooth. 



Panicle broadly obovate, 2 to 4 inches long and almost as broad, erect, lax, 

 rather divaricate ; rhachis slender, straight ; branches geminate, distantly and 

 repeatedly tri- or di-chotomously branched, scabrid, filiform to capillary, the lowest 

 up to 3 inches long ; pedicels 6-2 lines long, finely capillary, smooth above, 



Spikelets triangular to ovate, very obtuse, often broader than long, Ij to 2 lines 

 long, 4 to 7 -flowered, nodding, green, rarely purplish below. 



Glumes thinly scarious, horizontally spreading, subequal, obtuse or subacute, 

 3-nerved, 1 to 1| line long. Valves very close, very broadly cordate-ovate, very 

 obtuse with the tips often inflexed, very gibbous below, 1 to 1 J line long, glabrous, 

 7-nerved, the side-nerves joining at the base, hyaline margins very broad ; pales 

 elliptic, scarcely | line long, finely winged, wings very minutely ciliolate ; lodicules up 

 to I line long ; anthers almost J line long in the lower florets, much smaller in the 

 upper ; grain shortly oblong, truncate, convexo-concave or sulatriquetrous, broadly 

 grooved, | line long. 



Mediterranean regions ; introduced into many parts of the world. 



Eaibit&t: Natal. Near Durban, Wood, in Government Herbarium, 10,450. 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; 3, valve in profile ; 4, same, front view ; 5, pale ; 

 6, pistil, stamens and lodicules. All enlarged. 



