56 GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 
two plants are not even very closely related, but belong to quite 
distinct tribes in the Grass Family, and each comes true from its 
own seed. But Chess seeds, when buried in the soil, retain their 
vitality for years, and their coming up in a field where clean grain 
had been sown might be thus accounted for. When sown with 
spring crops it often fails to mature 
its seeds, and is therefore most fre- 
quently found growing with the fall- 
sown crops of rye and winter wheat. 
Grain containing Chess is somewhat 
; you difficult to clean, and if ground with 
wheat the flour is dark-colored and 
has a narcotic quality which ruins it 
commercially. Consequently such 
wheat is very sharply docked in the 
market. It is a most prolific weed. 
Professor Hunt, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, sowed one pound of it on one- 
twentieth of an acre and reaped 
ninety-nine pounds of seed; and as 
they are quite small and light, there 
are nearly as many seeds in a pound 
as there are wheat kernels in a 
bushel. (Fig. 26.) 
i Stems two to three feet tall, 
erect, smooth, and simple. Sheaths 
smooth, strongly nerved, shorter 
than the internodes. Leaves three 
to ten inches long, slightly hairy 
Hig: 0m pee esd eri (Bre- above but smooth beneath, and flat. 
Panicle loose and open, its branches 
somewhat drooping. Spikelets smooth, containing five to fifteen 
seeds, about a quarter-inch long, the lemmas adhering like oats, 
but distinguished from that grain by smaller size and darker 
color; they are also somewhat thicker and inrolled at the 
margins; awns, when present, usually short and straight but 
weak and soft, sometimes more or less flexuose. 
