WILD SEEDS OF FOOD VALUE 



particularly on the Pacific Coast where extensive 

 areas are covered with it as with a crop. The seed 

 resembles the cultivated grain, but is so hairy as 

 to stick in one's throat and choke one. After 

 thoroughly singeing off the hairs in a pan or basket 

 tray, the grain may be reduced to flour, and used 

 like ordinary oat-flour. Another pinole grass is 

 Elymus triticoides, Buckl., locally known as "wild 

 wheat" and "squaw grass." It is a tall, slim grass 

 with usually glaucous stems, and grows densely in 

 moist meadows and alkaline soil throughout the 

 Pacific Coast and eastward to Colorado and Arizona. 

 An allied species, more robust, with very dense 

 flower-spikes of a foot long and larger seeds, serves 

 a similar purpose. It is commonly called "rye 

 grass ' ' and is the Elymus condensatus, Presl., of the 

 botanists. It, too, is abundant in damp, alkaline 

 ground and along streams throughout the Far West, 

 and Mr. Coville ^ has suggested that it may be worthy 

 of experimentation as a cultivated grain for that 

 region. 



A Southwestern grass of wide distribution, par- 

 ticularly in the deserts, in sandy places (both moist 

 and dry) and on arid hillsides, is the so-called Indian 



8 "Plants Used by the Klamath Indians," Washington, Gov't Print- 

 ing Office, 1897. 



55 



