46 BRITISH SPECIES 
Panicle long, lax, and spreading, the branches several at each 
insertion, and very unequal in length. Spikelets 4 inch long, pale 
green or purplish, 2-flowered ; the lower flower is staminate and 
its glume has a long kneed and twisted dorsal awn; the upper 
flower bisexual, its glume with a short, straight, subterminal awn. 
Perennial, flowering close of June to autumn. 
Hordeum murinum, the Wall Barley, is a familiar grass in dry 
waste places and on banks by roadsides ; common in England, 
rare in Scotland and Irelarfd. It has a curious predilection for 
growing along the bottom of walls and in the vicinity of houses. 
Culms 6-18 inches. Leaves very flaccid, tapering above, hairy on 
both surfaces, auricled; sheaths in- 
flated, and except the lowest, glab- 
rous. Spike about 2 inches long, 
bristly, with long awns. Spikelets 
three in each notch of the rachis, 
about 4 inch long, 1-flowered, the 
lateral spikelets staminate, central 
one bisexual ; empty glumes of the 
middle spikelet linear-lanceolate, of 
the lateral spikelets bristle-like and 
scabrid, all with a terminal awn 
about twice their length ; one of the 
empty glumes of each lateral spike- 
let is usually ciliated; flowering 
glumes with an awn considerably 
exceeding those of the empty glumes. 
All the awns are scabrid. Annual 
or biennial, flowering early July to 
autumn. 
Bromus sterilis, the Barren Brome 
(Fig. 32), is very often seen in dry 
waste places and on roadside banks, 
usually under the shelter of hedges ; 
widely distributed. Culms about 2 
_ Fic. 32.—Bromus sterilis: droop- feet, “Leaves tapering above, more 
ing panicle ; below, enlarged, a flower- é : 
ing glume (showing long subterminal OF less hairy; ligule lanceolate. 
awn) with its palea and flower. Panicle with long, slender, arch- 
ing branches, 3-5 at the lower in- 
sertions, most of them bearing only one spikelet. Spikelets 
about an inch long (exclusive of the awns), 7- to 10-flowered, pale 
green, or tinted with purple ; empty glumes very unequal, the upper 
3-nerved, lower 1-nerved ; flowering glumes strongly 7-nerved, 
bifid, with a straight, subterminal, scabrid awn about an inch long. 
A handsome grass, recognizable at once by its large drooping long- 
awned spikelets. Annual or biennial, flowering latter part of 
une. 
: Phalaris canariensis, the Common Canary-grass, is often met 
with as a casual in waste places about towns and villages, and on 
the borders of cultivated fields where refuse has been deposited. 
