986 



THE GRASS FAMILY. 



seeds originally exported from England. In rich meadows abnormal 

 varieties, or rather, luxuriant states occur occasionally with a branched 

 spike, or with an increased number of variously deformed empty 

 glumes. 



2. Darnel Lolium. Lolium temulentum, Linn. (Fig. 1197.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1124, and L. arvense, t. 1125.) 



Closely allied to the Ryegrass L., 

 but the root is always annual, the outer 

 glume of the spikelets usually as long 

 as the spikelet itself, the flowering 

 glumes shorter and broader than in 

 the Ryegrass i., and some of them at 

 least have an awn longer than them- 

 selves. In fields and waste places, in 

 central and southern Europe, and cen- 

 tral Asia, extending more or less into 

 northern Europe as a weed of cultiva- 

 tion, and as such generally dispersed 

 over Britain, although not common. FL 

 summer. 



Fig. 1197. 



XXIX. FALSE-BROME. BRACHYPOD1UM. 



Spikelets many-flowered, long, in a single spike, as in Triticum, but 

 not so much flattened as in the perennial species of that genus, and not 

 quite so closely sessile, the axis of the spike not being indented to 

 receive them, yet not so distinctly stalked as in Fescue. 



A genus of very few species, chiefly from the temperate regions of 

 the old world, and intermediate, as it were, between Triticum, Fescue, 

 and Brome, with one or other of which genera they have often been 

 united. 

 Awns as long as or longer than the flowering glumes. Spikelets 



usually drooping 1. Slender F. 



Awns shorter than the flowering glumes. Spikelets erect or 



nearly so 2. Heath F. 



1. Slender False-Brome. Brachypodium sylvatieum, 



Beauv. (Eig. 1198.) 

 (Bromus, Eng. Bot. t. 729.) 

 A rather slender, erect G-rass, 2 to 3 feet high, with a perennial tuft, and 



