ROADSIDES AND WASTE PLACES 45 
In our seventh group are the grasses which are not partial to 
any of the habitats already mentioned, and which grow by road- 
sides and in waste places, or on wall-tops, or in sandy and chalky 
flelds. Two or three of them occur in other habitats as well, but 
most abundantly on waste ground. 
Poa annua, the Annual Meadow-grass (frontispiece) is the 
commonest grass in Britain, growing abundantly in every con- 
ceivable habitat, but especially in waste places, garden ground, 
by roads and footpaths, and in pastures; it even grows in the 
crevices of street pavement. Culms tufted, weak, ascending or 
prostrate, and sometimes rooting below, 2 inches to a foot high; 
leaves flat, linear, often transversely 
wrinkled, ribless but keeled, the apex 
suddenly pointed, and concave or 
“hooded.” Panicle deltoid and 
rather one-sided, the branches mostly 
paired, the longer one spreading 
laterally, the other in front. Spike- 
lets 4 inch long and about 5-flowered; 
glumes compressed, keeled, acute, 
awnless, not webbed. The whole 
plant is flaccid and bright green; 
annual or biennial, flowering March 
to December. All our other species 
of Poa are perennial. 
Agropyrum repens, the Common 
Couch (fig. 31), is very abundant 
in waste places, on field borders and 
arable land, and we have never seen 
a hedgebank from which it was ab- 
sent; it is universally distributed. 
Rootstock extensively creeping, with 
long subterranean stolons. Leaves 
flat, rather broadly linear-lanceolate, Y 
usually hairy on the upper surface, Fic. 31.—Agropyrum repens : cen- 
with numerous faint, unequal, slightly tral figure, the spike; on right hand 
a que . 5 spikelet enlarged ; on left, a/flower, 
scabrid ribs, auricled ; ligule scarcely enclosed in its glume and palea, more 
more than a margin. Culms 2-4 ft. enlarged. 
Spike 3-4 inches long, or more. 
Spikelets sessile, broadside to the rachis, one in each excavation, 
4-2 inch long, 4- or 5-flowered ; empty glumes nearly equal, the 
flowering ones acute or mucronate or, var. A. darbatum, with a 
short, stiff awn. Perennial, flowering July, August. 
Arrhenatherum avenaceum, the False Oat, is a common grass by 
roadsides and hedgerows, and is frequent, too, in meadows, 
pastures and woods; distributed all over Britain. Rootstock 
extensively creeping. Leaves flat, broadly linear-lanceolate, with 
low unequal ribs, slightly hairy above; ligule short, toothed. 
Culms 2-4 ft., the basal internodes often swollen into little knobs 
(var. A. nodosum) whence the popular name of Onion Couch, 
