616 graminejj:. [Hordeum. 



appear as if awned ;* inner aud upper valve linear-oblong, flat, diaphanous, with 

 slightly reflexed purplish margins, spinulosely ciliated above and bifid at the apex. 

 Anthers pale yellow. Styles yellowish. 



** Inflorescence spicate. 



f Solitary flowers or spikelets sessile, upon a common stalk or rachis. 



a. Spilce simple. Flowers or spikelets either distichous or inserted on alt sides of 



the rachis. 



XXIX. Hordeum, Linn. Barley-grass. 



" Spikelets in threes from the same joint of the rachis, 1 — S 

 usually neuter or barren : fertile ones with a perfect floret and a 

 rudimentary neuter one. Glumes 2, collateral, awned. Glumel- 

 las 2."— Br. Fl. 



1. H. murinum, L. Mouse Barley. Wall Barley-grass. Way 

 Bennet. Spike obovato-oblong subcuneate, culms leafy at top, 

 " glumes of the middle spikelet linear-lanceolate ciliated, of the 

 lateral ones setaceous-scabrous, outer glumellas of aU the spike- 

 lets shorter than their awns." — Br. Fl. p. 555. E. B. t. 1971. 

 Host. Gram. Aust. i. 25, t. 33. 



By waysides, and in waste places under walls about towns and villages ; very 

 frequent. Fl. May— July. 0. 



Root annual, caespitose, fibrous, the fibres branched, flexuose, slender. Culms 

 numerous, forming dense tufts, seldom much above a foot high, lax, spreading or 

 decumbent below, then ascending, mostly geniculate at the joints, terete, striated, 

 glabrous and shining, clothed to the very summit or nearly so with leaves, never, 

 as in the next, naked any great extent below the spike, simple or slightly branched 

 at bottom. Leaves few (about 5 or 6), pale dull green and slightly glaucous, very 

 broadly linear, very acute, lax and wavy, the uppermost one shorter than its 

 sheath, the rest longer ; all clasping the culm by pale, falcate, very acuminate 

 auricles, of which the points cross one another behind ; downy on both sides with 

 fine erect pubescence, slightly keeled beneath, their margins minutely scabrous. 

 Sheaths loose or somewhat inflated, striated, smooth and glabrous (even the lower- 

 most in my specimens), or with a very slight downiness on them at farthest, the 

 uppermost sheath very commonly spathaceous, or half-embracing the base of the 

 flowering spike ; all divided throughout. Liyule excessively short and truncate, 

 erose. Spike densely distichous, compressed, pale yellowish green, from about 

 2 to 3^ inches long, obovato-oblong or somewhat wedge-shaped in circumscrip- 

 tion from the gradual spreading out of the awns upwards to its very obtuse termi- 

 nation. Spikelets erecto-patent, 3-flovvered. Rachis broad and flat, 2-edged, the 

 margins beset with spinules pointing upwards. Central floret sessile, perfect, the 

 two lateral florets shortly stipitate, containing starainate florets only. Glumes 

 very narrow, those of the intermediate floret linear-lanceolate, equal in size, sca- 

 brous at the back and margins, 2 — 3 ribbed, ciliated on the edges with long white 

 hairs directed upwards, acuminated into a bristly awn about equal to the longer 

 one of the lateral florets ; glumes of the lateral florets very similar to those of the 

 centj-al one, but narrower and a little unequal, the outer one setaceous and merely 

 scabrous, the inner subulate, fringed on the outer side and shorter than its fellow, 

 which is about to the central floret-glumes in length, those of all the florets green 

 at the back, with pale cartilaginous edges. Palece 2; the inferior and outer one 

 of all the florets ovato-lanceolate, concave, glabrous or a little hairy, 6-ribbed ; 



* The outer valve of the uppermost floret in all or most of the spikelets I have 

 examined has a sudden flexure about the middle, and which is perhaps a constant 

 character. 



