GRASS FAMILY. 



75 



1. L. perenne L. English Perennial Ray-grass. Perennial; 

 stems 1 to 2 or even 3 ft. high, smooth; foliage dark -green; sheaths 

 smooth, slightly compressed; ligule short; edges and upper surface of 

 blade scabrid; spike 4 to 12 in. long, strict, stout, bearing 6 to 10 

 spikelets, or slender and bearing 3 to 4 spikelets; rachis smooth, chan- 

 neled; spikelets £ to £ in. long, quite smooth, shining, 7 to 11- 

 flowered; bracts strongly ribbed, linear-lanceolate; bractlet linear- 

 oblong, terete, obtuse or cuspidate or rarely very shortly awned, 

 ribbed; anthers purple. Introduced by roadsides and in waste places: 

 Berkeley; Point Reyes, etc. Feb. -Aug. 



Var. tenue Kunth (L. tenue L.). Pacey's Ray-grass. Peren- 

 nial; more slender than the species; spikelets 3 to 4-flowered; bractlet 

 acute, rarely very shortly awned. 



Var. Italicum Hook. (L. Italicum R. Br.). Pkrennial Italian 

 Ray-grass. Biennial or perennial; stems taller, leaves broader; both 

 leaves and spikelets lighter green in color than in the species; spike- 

 lets 5 to 10-flowered; bractlets long- or short-awned. It is a cultivated 

 form not known in the wild state except as naturalized. 



Var. multiflorum Auct. (L. multiflorum Lam.). Annual 

 Italian Ray-grass. Annual (or at most only biennial); spikes very 

 handsome, often reddish-tinged and curved; spikelets 13 to 25- 

 flowered; bractlet of uppermost flowers awned; bractlet broader in 

 the middle, and therefore appearing more curved on the margins, 

 than in var. Italicum; rachis more scabrous. — Cloverdale; Berkeley. 



2. L. temulentum L. Darnel. Poison-darnel. Annual; 

 stem stout, 1 to 3 ft. high; spike rather stout; spikelets 5 to 7- 

 flowered; bract sharp-pointed, not ribbed, extending to the apex of or 

 beyond the uppermost bractlet; bractlet shorter, broader and more 

 turgid than in L. perenne, terminating in an awn as long as the 

 spikelet, or sometimes short-awned or awnless (var. arvense Syme.); 

 in other respects similar to L. perenne. 



Naturalized from Europe: Berkeley; San Francisco; Antioch; 

 Briones Hills; Point Reyes and elsewhere; not uncommon as a weed 

 in waste places. May. 



43. AGROPYRON J. Gaertn. Wheat-grass. 

 Ours perennials with very short ligule. Inflorescence a simple, 

 slender, stiff and erect spike. Spikelets 3 to many-flowered, large, 

 solitary, sessile, inserted broadside or somewhat obliquely to the 

 rachis, distichous, compressed. Bracts not equaling the nearest 

 bractlet, unequal, lanceolate or linear, many-nerved. Bractlet cori- 

 aceous, 5 to 7-nerved. Palea hyaline, flattened, usually ciliate- 

 keeled. Scales ovate, entire, ciliate. Stamens 3. Ovary hairy at 

 the apex; styles very short, distinct; stigmas distant, feathery. 

 Achene hairy at apex. (The Greek name for some allied grass, from 

 agros, field, puros, wheat, — hence field- or wild-wheat.) 



Bractlet long-awned. 



Reacts awnless; awns of bractlet S to 18 lines long I. A. scabnim. 



. Bracts shortly awned; awn of bractlet 6 to 7 lines long ... 2. .1. Richardsoni. 



