GRASS FAMILY 



573 



usually erect branches; spikelets about 5 — 15, drooping, brown 

 or purple, 2-flowered. — Shady rocky places in the north and west. 

 — Fl. May, June. — Perennial. 



2. M. niitans (Wood Melic). — An elegant, very slender plant, 

 1 — 2 feet, with long, narrow leaves with a sheath closed, as in the 

 sedges, and a short, blunt ligule with a slender acuminate lobe on 

 one side; panicle lax, slightly drooping, with few, long, slender 



dActvlis glomerXta {Cock's-foot Grass). 



branches, each bearing 1 or more of the erect, i-flowered, purple 

 spikelets. — Shady woods ; common. — Fl. May — July. Perennial. 



35. Dactylis, of which D. glomerdta (Cock's-foot Grass) is the 

 only species, is a coarse grass, 1 — 2 feet high, creeping below, * 

 with long, broad, flat leaves with rough sheaths and long ligules ; 

 spikelets numerous, small, rough, ovate, flattened, 3 — 5-flowered, 

 densely crowded into thick i-sided, ovate clusters, arranged in 

 an irregular panicle with a few long branches below, horizontal in 

 flower, erect in fruit : glumes lanceolate, strongly keeled, shortly 



