38 



Genus 15. APERA. Wind Grass. 



Gen. Char. Inflorescence loosely panicled, or narrow and con- 

 tracted. Spikelets laterally compressed, one-flowered. Glumes 

 two, the outer or lower one smaller, membranaceous, acute, 

 awnless. Flower with hairs at the base, accompanied by the 

 pedicel-like rudiment of another. Palese two, unequal ; the 

 outer with a long, nearly terminal awn. 



The difference of character between this genus and Agrostis 

 rests chiefly upon the comparatively smaller size of the lower 

 glume, and the very long and nearly terminal awn of the outer 

 palea : added to which, there is the mimute, stalk-like rudiment of a 

 second flower, with a small tuft of hairs on each side, at the base 

 of the inner palea, and therefore superior. Such appendages are 

 but rarely traceable in the spikelets of the latter genus, in which 

 the species of Apera are sometimes included. 



The name, rather arbitrarily bestowed by Palisot de Beauvois, is 

 from the Greek, signifying literally without mutilation, and applies 

 to the constant presence in these plants of the long floral awns, 

 organs which in Agrostis are either comparatively very short or 

 wanting altogether. 



Apera Spica-venti. Spreading Wind Grass. Plate XXXIII. 



Panicle loose ; its branches and branchlets spreading, elongated, 

 slender. Glumes unequal, lanceolate, rough on the keel. Outer 

 palea bifid at the apex, with a long, nearly terminal, straight awn; 

 the inner one smaller. Anthers linear-oblong. 



Apera Spica-venti, Beauvois, Babington. Agrostis Spica-venti, Lin- 

 naus. E. B. 951 ; ed. 2. 95. Anemagrostis Spica-venti, 

 Triniv^, Parnel, Lindley. 



Though scarcely to be considered rare, this is far from being a 

 common grass. It is, perhaps, more frequently met with in the 

 vicinity of London than elsewhere throughout the kingdom, espe- 

 cially in some parts of Surrey and Essex ; growing almost always 

 in a sandy soil, and preferring spots that are occasionally inun- 

 dated, sometimes in cornfields. Stems slender, one to three feet 

 high. Leaves rough. Panicle from three or four inches to a foot 

 in length ; its longer branches often three inches or more, all very 

 slender and more or less waved and spreading. Spikelets small, 

 stalked, and distant. Awn several times longer than the palea, 

 rough, inserted a very little below the bifid, or deeply-notched 

 extremity. Inner palea scarcely shorter than the outer. The 

 magnified figure a shows the unequal glumes, the outer of which 



