Tin: CiKASSKS of Tknnksskk. 127 



The heads resemble those of Rye, and for this reason the ^rrass is 

 often called "Wild Rye." It has no recognized agricultural value. 



3. Elymus striatus Willd. Slender Lyme-grass. 

 Plate XLVI. Figure 184. 



A slender grass, two to three feet high, with bristly, nodding 

 spikes. Sheaths hairy, or the upper smooth; leaves six to eight 

 inches long, pubescent on the upper surface, scabrous on margins. 

 Spikes two to four inches long; rachis villous. Spikelets one- to 

 three flowered, pilose-hairy; empty glumes awl-shaped, awn- 

 pointed, one- to three-nerved, two to three times the length of the 

 florets; flowering glumes three lines long, with slender awns about 

 twelve lines long. 



Var. villosus Gray has hairy glumes and villous sheaths. Thick- 

 ets along streams, rather common. July — August. 



64. ASPRELLA Willd. Enum. 132 (1809). 



Spikelets two- to four-flowered, solitary or more often two to 

 three together, raised on short, callus like pedicels at each joint of 

 the continuous rachis of the terminal spike; rachilla articulated 

 below each flowering glume. Empty glumes one or two, awn-like 

 or bristle-form, usually present in the lower spikelets of each spike, 

 much reduced or entirely wanting in the upper. Flow^ering glumes 

 narrow, rigid, smooth, and rounded on the back, long-awned from 

 the apex. Palea strongly two-keeled. 



Perennials, with flat leaves and terminal, bearded spikes. 

 Species four, two North American and two of limited range in 

 the Old World. Only one species occurs in Tennessee. 



1. Asprella Hystrix Willd. [FAymus Hystrix lAvvn.) Bottle-brush. 



Plate XLVII. Figure 185. 



Culms three to four feet high, smooth. Sheaths smooth or mi- 

 nutely scabrous above, ligule very short, its edge shortly and finely 

 fringed, leaf-blade five to ten inches long, three to eight lines 

 wide, more or less scabrous. Spikes three to six inches long, the 

 rachis much flattened and ciliate along the edges; the internodes 

 about one-fourth of an inch long. Spikelets about one-half an 

 inch long, at first erect, widely spreading in fruit. Empty glumes 

 awn-like, usually present in the lower spikelets, which they some- 

 times equal in length. Awns of the flowering glumes about an 

 inch long. Straight or sometimes divergent. 



Rocky woods, thickets, and fence rows, over the State. June — 

 July. 



Apparently of no agricultural value, for it never grows at any 

 point in sufficient abundance to yield an appreciable amount of 

 forage. Its returns from cultivation have yet to be determined 

 by trial. 



