GRAMINE^. 993 



XXXI. FESCUE. FESTUCA. 



Spikelets several-flowered, usually numerous, in a compactor slightly 

 spreading panicle (in one variety reduced to a simple spike). Outer 

 glumes unequal, keeled. Flowering glumes lanceolate, convex on the 

 back, pointed or tapering into an awn, scarcely scarious at the edges. 

 Ovary glabrous, rarely downy, with the styles terminal. 



A genus widely distributed over the temperate regions of the globe, 

 and numerous in forms if not in species. It differs from Foa only in 

 the longer, more pointed, or awned glumes ; from Brome in the in- 

 florescence, in the more terminal points or awns, the edges of the 

 glumes less scarious and scarcely, if at all, extended beyond the com- 

 mencement of the awn, as well as in the glabrous ovary and more ter- 

 minal styles of most of the species. 

 Awns none, or not above a line long. 



Leaves, at least the radical ones, subulate and almost 



cylindrical. Stem seldom 2 feet high 1. Sheep's F. 



Leaves flat. Stems 2 to 6 feet high. 



Spikelets 3- to 5-flowered. Outer glumes linear. Flower- 

 ing glumes narrow ' 3. Heed F. 



Spikelets 5- to 10-fiowered. Outer glumes lanceolate. 



Flowering glumes broadly lanceolate 2. Meadow F. 



Awns as long as or longer than the glumes. 



Panicle loose and spreading. Stem 3 to 4 feet .... Tall Brome. 

 Panicle one-sided, narrow and compact or spike-like. 

 Stems annual, under a foot high. 

 Outer glumes narrow, the lowest 1 to 2 lines, the second 



2 to 3 lines long 4. JRafs-tail F. 



Lowest glume a minute scale, the second lanceolate, 4 to 



6 lines long 5. One-glumedF. 



1. Sheep's Fescue. Festuca ovina. (Fig. 1207.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 585, F. duriuscula, t. 470, F. ccesia, 1. 1917, and F. rubra, 



t. 2056.) 



A densely tufted or more rarely shortly creeping perennial, 6 inches 

 to near 2 feet high. Leaves chiefly radical, very narrow, and almost 

 cylindrical, the few stem ones more rarely flattened. Panicle rather 

 compact and slightly one-sided, from 1^ to 4 inches long. Spikelets 

 smaller than in the meadow F. ; the glumes narrower, glabrous or 

 downy, very faintly nerved, and almost always bearing a fine point or 

 awn about a line long. 



In hilly pastures, most abundant in dry, operr situations, more rarely 

 in moist places, throughout Europe and central and Russian Asia, from 

 the Mediterranean to the Arctic regions, and in North America and 

 ]Sfew Zealand. Abundant in Britain. Fl. summer. In mountain pas- 

 tures it is very apt to become viviparous, the glumes becoming elon- 



TOL. II. 2 P 



