Nardus. | LXXXIX. GRAMINEZ. 525 
fine, but very stiff and bristle-like. Spikelets 1-flowered, sessile, alter- 
nately arranged in 2 rows on one side of an erect, slender, simple spike, 
often assuming a purplish hue, Each spikelet has a single narrow glume, 
3 or 4 lines long, ending in a fine point, and enclosing a palea, 3 stamens, 
and a simple style. 
On moors, heaths, and hilly pastures, in northern and Arctic Europe 
and Russian Asia, and in the mountains of central and southern Europe to 
the Caucasus. Common in Britain. JU. summer. 
XXV. ELYMUS. LYMEGRASS. 
Spikelets 2- to 4-flowered, awnless, sessile in pairs (or, in exotic species, 
3 or 4 together) in the notches of a simple spike. 
A small genus, spread over the temperate and cooler parts of the northern 
hemisphere, differing from Hordeum in that all the spikelets contain more 
than one flower. 
1. &. arenarius, Linn. (fig. 1204). Sand Lymegrass, Lymegrass.— 
A stiff, glaucous perennial, 2 to 4 feet high, with a long creeping root- 
stock. Leaves stiff, rolled inwards on the edges, ending in a hard point. 
Spike sometimes rather dense, 3 or 4 inches long, sometimes lengthening 
to 8 or 9 inches, with the spikelets in rather distant pairs, each containing 
3 or 4 flowers. Glumes lanceolate, stiff, downy or rarely glabrous; the 
outer ones 8 or 9 lines long, and very pointed ; the flowering ones gradually 
shorter, broader, and less pointed. | 
In maritime sands, common in the temperate and colder regions of the 
northern hemisphere, more local on the Mediterranean and in hotter climates, 
and occurring occasionally in inland central Europe, North Asia and North 
America. fl.summer. A singular variety, with the spike much elongated, 
the spikelets distant, and the glumes often enlarged, in which also the 
whole spike is abruptly bent down, has been distinguished as a species, 
under the name of #. geniculatus, Curt. It is met with on the coasts of 
Holland and Scandinavia, and is said to have existed on the Thames below 
Gravesend. 
XXVI. HORDEUM. BARLEY. 
Spikelets 3 together, sessile on alternate notches of a simple spike, 1 or 
2 of them consisting each of 2 glumes, either empty or with male or rudi- 
mentary flowers, the 2 or 1 others containing each 1 perfect flower ; the 
empty glumes of the 8 spikelets often reduced to mere awns, and forming 
a kind of involucre round the flowering glume. 
A genus of few species, dispersed over the temperate regions of both 
hemispheres, chiefly in maritime districts, and rare in the tropics. The 
origin of the 2 or 3 cultivated species has not been as yet satisfactorily 
made out, 
Flowers of the 2 lateral spikelets perfect; of the central one 
male, or rudimentary, or none . : : : : . . 
Flowers of the central spikelet perfect; of the lateral ones male, 
or rudimentary, or none. 
Outer glumes of all the spikelets awn-like from the base . . 2. H. pratense, 
Outer glumes of the central spikelet lanceolate, and ciliate at 
the base; of the others awn-like from the base . 3. H. murinum, 
1, H. sylvaticum, 
