GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
91 
35. Secale L. 
Spikelets usually 2-flowered, solitary and sessile, placed flatwise 
against the rachis ; the rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and 
produced beyond the upper floret as a minute stipe ; glumes narrow, 
rigid, acuminate or subulate-pointed ; lemmas broader, sharply keeled, 
5-nervecl, ciliate on the keel and exposed margins, tapering into a 
long awn. 
Erect, mostly annual grasses, with flat blades and dense terminal 
spikes. Species five, in the temperate regions of Eurasia ; one species 
cultivated in the United States and frequently escaped along way- 
sides. 
Type species: Secale cereale L. 
Secale L., Sp. PI. 84, 1753 ; Gen. PI. 36. 1754. Linnaeus describes four species : 
S. cereale, S. villosum, S. orientale, and S. creticum. The second species is now 
referred to Haynaldia, the third to Agropyron. The first species is chosen as 
the type, as it is a well-known economic species. 
Secale cereale (fig. 45), common rye, is cultivated extensively in 
Europe and to some extent in the United States for the grain, but 
here it is frequently grown as a forage crop. Eye is used for winter 
forage in the South and for fall and spring pasture in the inter- 
mediate region, and for green feed farther north. It is also used for 
green manure and as a nurse crop for lawn mixtures, especially on 
public grounds when it is desired to cover the ground quickly with a 
green growth. Cultivated rye probably has been developed from the 
wild perennial European species S. montanum Guss. In the wild 
species of Secale the rachis disarticulates, but in S. cereale it is con- 
tinuous. 
36. Scribneria Hack. 
Spikelets 1 -flowered, solitary, appressed and lateral to the some- 
what thickened continuous rachis, the rachilla disarticulating above 
the glumes, prolonged as a very minute hairy stipe; glumes equal, 
narrow, firm, acute, keeled on the outer nerves, the first 2-nerved, the 
second 4-nerved; floret with short hairs at the base; lemma shorter 
than the glumes, membranaceous, rounded on the back, obscurely 
nerved, the apex shortly bifid, the lobes obtuse, the faint midnerve 
extending as a slender straight awn ; palea 2-nerved, about as long as 
the lemma. 
Low annual, with slender cylindric spikes. Species one. 
Type species : Lepturus bolanderi Thurb. 
Scribneria Hack., Bot. Gaz. 11: 105, pi. 5. 1886. One species described, based 
on Lepturus bolanderi Thurb. 
The single species, Scribneria bolanderi (Thurb.) Hack. (fig. 46), 
is found in sandy sterile ground in the mountains from central 
California to Washington. It is too small and rare to be of economic 
importance. 
