Hordeum.'] clxxiii. GRAMiNBiB. (J. D. Hooker.) 373 



Stems densely tufted, 3-6 in., stoat or slender, often gealculate at the base. 

 Leaves short, linear, flat, glabrous or hairy beneath ; ligule small. Spikes 2-3J by 

 ■J-Jin., erect or inclined; raohis subfragile, green or purplish. Spikelets densely 

 crowded, sub hexastichous, \-} in. long, awns longer or shorter than the gl. — Some 

 of Dr. Thomson's Tibetan specimens are upwards of 3 ft. high with the stem nearly 

 as thick as a goose-quill. 



Characters of Agropyrum, hat spikelets for the most part in pairs, 

 threes, or fascicled in the nodes of the raohis, and empty gls. usually more 

 or less collateral — Species about 20 enumerated, of H. and S. temperate 

 regions. 



Boissier {FL Or. v. 690) considers Elymus as too closely allied to Hordeum. To 

 me it appears to be connected with Agropyrum through E. sibirieus, and A. longe- 

 aristatum, in both whieli the empty glumes are oppositi; one another, not as in the 

 otlier Indian Elymi placed more or less collaterally. It is as difficult to limit the 

 species in one genus as in the other, and the more specimens one has of any species, 

 the more difiBcult it is to limit it. 



* Aioii offl. gl. much longer than the gl. 



1. &■ sibiricus; Linn. Sp. PI. 3 ; spike short or elongate and 

 flexuous, spikelets geminate and fascicled, empty gls. subopposite much 

 shorter than the 5-7-fld. spikelet, £1. gls. lanceolate 5-nerved narrowed 

 into a slender erect or reouryed awn much longer than the grl. Schreb. 

 Oram. i. t. 21, f. 1 ; Kunth Unum. PI. i. 451, StppL 367 ; Ledeb. Ft. Boss, iv, 

 330; Steud. Syn. Gram. '34-8 ; Duthie Grass. N.W. Ind. 46. E. glaucns, 

 JBuckl. in Proc. Acad. 8c. Philad. 1862, 99. E. nutans, Griseb. in Goett. 

 Nachr. (1868) 72. E. tener, lAnn.f. Suppl. 114. 



Tbmpeeate & Alpine Himalaya ; from Kashmir to Sikkim, alt. 10-1 +,000 ft. 

 Eastekn & Western Tibet, alt. lU-15,000 ft. (15-18,000 ft., S^oZiez/fa).— Disteib. 

 Alfghan., Abyssinia, N. Asia & America. 



Stem 1-2 ft., densely tufted, ascending, smootii, erect inclined or deourved 

 below the spike. Leaves i-J in. broad, nearly smooth ; ligule very short. Spike 

 very variable, 4-10 in. long, green or brownish, straight curved or flexuous ; rachis 

 smooth, or faintly scabrid, as are the margins of its hollows. Spileeleis |-1 in. long 

 excluding the awns, sessile and pedicelled ; rachilla slender, minutely scaberulous, 

 its internodes long or short ; gl. I and II most variable, II ^-f the length of the 

 lowest fl. gl., from narrowly oblong to ovate-oblong lanceolate or almost setaceous, 

 acute acuminate or both or II only awned, quite entire (never notched), usually 

 strongly 3-nerved ; fl. gls. narrowly lanceolate, narrowed into the awn, quite entire 

 or tip toothed on one or both sides at the base of the awn, glabrous smooth or 

 faintly scaberulous, 5-nerved usually to the base ; awn f-1 in. ; palea linear, keels 

 ciliate-toothed above the middle. JLodicules lacerate. Anthers short. Oimry 

 pyriform, top hirsute; stigmas short. — A very abundaut grass in Tibet and the 

 higher Himalaya, states of which are with difficulty distinguished from Agropyrum 

 longe-arisiatum (which see), and just as variable, in the empty glumes especially, 

 but the awns are usually shoi'ter. A small very slender form with an inclined 

 horizontal and upcurved spike of secund purplish spikelets is var. minor of Haekel 

 {DatXiieu. 13,74:5) and Agropyrum longe-aristatum v&v. Aitchisoni of Boiss. (Fl. Or. 

 V. 6B0) and Brachypodium tatanaum, Munro in Journ. Linn. Soo. xviii. (1881) 109. — 

 Another variety (liromns dubius, Jacquem. mss.) has oblong very dense short sub- 

 cylindric spikes. It is a very alpine form, found at 15-18,000 ft. elevation in 

 Eastern and Western Tibet. 



