THE BAELEY GRASSES. 117 



had taken possession and grew luxuriantly, and was 

 called wheat grass, from its resemblance to wheat. It 

 goes in diiferent parts of the country by a great variety 

 of names, as quake grass, quack grass, squitch grass. It 

 is important to destroy it, if possible. 



Bearded Wheat Grass {Triticum caninum) is found 

 in woods and on the banks of streams, from New York 

 to Wisconsin and northward. It has no creeping root- 

 stalks, like couch grass. Spikelets four or five flowered ; 

 glumes three-nerved, rachis rough and bristly on the 

 edges ; awn longer than the smooth flower ; leaves flat 

 and roughish. It is perennial, and flowers in August ; 

 grows from one to three feet high. It is sometimes 

 found in fields. 



A variety of couch grg,ss, the Triticum dasystachyum, 

 is also found in Michigan and Wisconsin. 



Wheat {Triticum vulgare). — See next chapter. 

 Egyptian Wheat (Triticum compositum) is cultivated 

 in gardens as a curiosity. 



44. HoEDEUM. Barley Grasses. 



Spikelets one-flowered, with an awl-shaped rudiment 

 on the inner side, three at each joint of the rachis, the 

 lateral ones usually abortive or imperfect, short-stalked; 

 glumes side by side in front of the spikelets, slender and 

 bristle-form; lower pale convex, long-awned; stamens 

 three ; grain long, adhering to the pales. 



Squirrel-tail Grass {Hordeum juhatum) is widely 

 diffused over our salt marshes, and the shores of the 

 northern lakes, in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and 

 becomes a prairie grass in moist, level places. Stem 

 slender, smooth, from one to two feet high, with rather 

 short leaves, and low, lateral, abortive, neutral flowers, 

 on a short pedicel, short-awned, the perfect flower 



