150 



HoRDEUM SYLVATicuM. Wood Barley Grass. Wood Lyme Grass, 

 Plate GXXV. 



Glumes all subulate, rough, (not ciliated). Lateral spikelets fertile ; 

 central one (usually) imperfect. Outer palea with an awn twice its 

 own length. 



Hordeum sylvaticum, Hudson. Most modern botanists. Elymus 

 europoeus, LirwwEua. E. B. 1317 ; ed. 2. 173. 



A native of woods and thickets in many parts of England, though 

 chiefly, perhaps, over a subsoil of chalk or limestone. Stems erect, 

 about two feet high. Leaves comparatively broad, linear-lanceolate, 

 attenuated, pointed, rough, especially on the edges. Ligule short, 

 blunt. Inflorescence compact, or more or less interruptedly spicate, 

 about three inches long, linear. Spikelets one- or two-flowered ; the 

 two outer ones bearing one fertile flower, and occasionally the rudi- 

 ment of a second ; the middle one frequently barren, when its glumes 

 are short and involute at the edges so as to appear setaceous. Glumes 

 of the fertUe spikelets of equal length, dilated, three-veined, terminating 

 in an awn, rough, but not ciliated. Spikelets sessile, or nearly so. 



Perennial. Flowers in July and August. 



It is not a grass of any value to the farmer, being deficient in 

 nutritive quality, and disliked by cattle. Like other species belonging 

 naturally to shady situations, it dwindles under exposure. 



Genus 41. SEOALE. Rye. 



Gen. Chak. Inflorescence compact, spicate. Spikelets solitary in 

 the notches, or teeth of the raohis, two- or three-flowered ; the 

 two lower flowers fertile, sessile, opposite ; the upper one barren 

 or rudimentary only. Glumes subulate, opposite, shorter than 

 the flowers. Outer palea entire, awned ; inner one bifid. 



This genus, founded on the common cultivated Rye, Secale cereale, 

 and strictly considered, perhaps, consisting of that original species only, 

 is said to have derived its name from the Latin seco, to cut. The Rye 

 is mentioned under this name by Pliny, but does not appear to have 

 been an object of cultivation by the Romans, though probably the chief 

 bread-corn in use among the Gauls at the tune of their conquest by 

 the former : the Celtic name for a sickle, sega, a word from the same 

 root, affords an equally plausible origin for the title of the earliest 

 kind of grain grown by the people of that race. 



WhUe the genera Avena, Hordeum, and Triticum include, .besides 

 the cultivated Oats, Barleys, and Wheats, several of our indigenous 

 grasses, Secale has no further claim to a place in our catalogue than as 

 representing a cereal associated with the practice of agriculture in 

 these islands from the most distant period of their history. 



