GRASS FAMILY. 355 



P. el&tior, Tallee Meadow FEacuE, A rather rigid grass of meadows 

 and pastures, nat. from Europe: l°-4° high, with green flat leaves, a narrow 

 panicle with short branches appressed before and after flowering, 5-10-flowered 

 green spikelets, the lower palet blunt, or acute, or rarely with a short awn. 1}. 



Brbmus, Bkome GtiAss. Spikelets large, at length drooping in an open 

 panicle, containing 5 - 10 or more flowers, the lower palet with a short bristle 

 point or an awn from the blunt rounded tip or notch, the upper palet soon adher- 

 ing to the grain. Coarse grasses : two or three wild species are common, and the 

 following are weeds of Cultivation, from Europe, or tai last cultivated for fodder. 



B. sec4Iinus, Common Chess or Cheat. Too well known in wheat- 

 flelds ; nearly smooth ; panicle open and spreading, even in fruit ; spikelets 

 turgid; flowers laid broadly over each other in the two ranks; Idwer palet 

 convex on the back, concave within, jiwnless or short-awned. (T) @ 



B. racem6sus. Upright Chess : like the other, but with narrower 

 erect panicle contracted in fruit, lower palpt slender-awned, and sheaths some- 

 times hairy, (ij @ 



B. m611is, Soft Chess : like the preceding, but soft-downy, with denser 

 conical-ovate spikelets, and the long-awhed lower palet acute. © ® 



B. uniololdes, or B. SchrXderi (Ceeat6chloa unioloides) : lately 

 much prized for fodder, may be valuable S., is rather stout and broad-leaved, 

 with drooping large spikelets much flattened laterally, so that the lower palets 

 are almost conduplicate and keeled on the back. % 



Brlza mdiXUna, Large Quaking Grabs or Kattlesnake-Gkass, is 

 sometimes cult, in gardens for ornament, from Eu. : a low grass, with the 

 hanging :many-flowereJ ovate-heartrshaped spikelets somewhat like those Of 

 Bromus, but pointless, very tumid, pui-pUsh, becoming dry and papery, rattling 

 in the wind, — wtence the common name. ® 



■*- *- -I- Grain and Miadow- Grasses, with a mostly twisted or herd, awn onlJie 

 back ,of the lower palet ; powers 2 or 3, or Jew in the spikelet, arid mostly 

 shorter than the glumes. 



' *+ Flowers perfect or the uppermost rudimentary. 

 Ay^na satlva, Cultivated Oat, from Old World : soft and smooth, 

 witli a loose panicle of large drooping spikelets, the palets investing the grain, 

 one flower with a long twisted awn on the back, the other awnless. (T) 



A. nflda, Skinless Oat, rarely cult, from Old World : has narrower 

 roughish leaves, 3 or 4 flowers in the spikelet, and grain loose in the palets. Q 



*-* ++ One flower perfect and one staminate only. 



Arrenathdrum avenkoenm., Oat-Grass, or Grass-of-the-Andes. 

 Rather coarse but soft grass, introduced from Europe into meadows and fields, 

 and rather valuable : 2° -4° high, with flat linear leaves, long and loose panicle, 

 thin and very unequal glumes, including a staminate flower, the lower palet, of 

 which bears a long bent awn below its middle, above this a perfect flower with 

 its lower palet bristle-pointed from near the tip, and above that a rudiment of a 

 third flower. ^ 



Hdlcus landltus, Velvet-Grass, or Meadow-Soft-Grass. Introduced 

 from Eu. into meadows, not very common, lj°-2° high, well distinguished by 

 its paleness and velvety softness, being soft downy all over ; panicle crowded ; 

 the flowers only 2 in the spikelet, small, rather distant, the lower one perfect 

 and awnless, the upper staminate and with a curved or hooked awn below the 

 tip of its lower palet. y, 



§ 2. Spikelets either strictly spiked or in a panicle so contracted and dense as to 

 imitate a spike. (Here would besought one species of Calamstgiostis and 

 one of Phalaria, for which see abovci p. 354, 355.J 



* Aum borne low dawn on the back.of one or two palets, 



Anthox&nthum odorktum, Sweet-soented Vernal-Grass, nat. 

 from Eu. : the plant which gives delicious fragrance to drying hay (the other, 



