HoLCus, Linn. 
Spikelets in rather dense, oblong or interrupted panicles, laterally compressed, 
disarticulating from the tips f)f the pedicels ; rhachilla slightly produced beyond 
the upper floret, disarticulating n)ore or less readily below the valves ; joints 
slender, lower curved and often appendaged. Florets 2, lower perfect, upper 
usually male, sometimes perfect or barren. 
Glumes 2, membranous, keeled, acute or acuminate, lower 1-nerved, upper 
3-nerved, sometimes awned. Valves shorter than the glumes, chartaceous, very 
obscurely 5-3-nerved, lower awnless, upper awned. Pales narrow, 2-keeled. 
Lodicules 2, delicate. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous ; styles distinct ; stigmas 
plumose, laterally exserted. Grain laterally compressed, enclosed by the valve 
and pale and often adhering to the latter, soft ; hilum short ; embryo small. 
Annual or perennial.— Blades flat or convolute when dry ; panicle usually 
more or less contracted, sometimes almost spike-like ; spikelets deciduous, pallid. 
Species about 6 ; 2 conmion in Europe, but naturalised in many temperate 
countries ; I in South Africa, the rest Mediterranean. 
PLATE 481. 
HoLCUS lanatus, Linn. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, p. 465). 
Nat. Order Graminea?. 
Perennial, tufted, 2-3 feet high. Cl'j>ms 3 to 4-noded, softly hairy, at least 
below the panicle, rarely quite glabrf)us ; leaf-sheaths reversedly and softly hairy, 
rarely glabrous, villous at the nodes, the uppermost inflated ; ligule membranous, 
oblong, pubescent, 1 line long ; blades linear to linear-lanceolate, up to 6 inches, 
by 2 to 3|- lines, tiie uppermost very short, flat, softly hairy. 
Panicle erect, oblong, 2 to G inches long, usually contracted ; rhachis, 
branches, branchlets and pedicels hairy. 
Spikelets oblong, 2^^ to 2^ lines long, whitish or purplish. 
Glumes almost equally long, mucronate, scabrid, keels pectinate-ciliate, the 
lower narrower, the upper broader with prominent side-nerves ; lower floret perfect, 
upper male ; lower valve obliquely lanceolate-oblong, rather more than one line 
long, with a few hairs on the keel, very obscurely 5-nerved ; callus with a few 
long hairs ; ujyjjer valve smaller and thinner, awui shorter than the valve, at length 
recurved, rather stout ; pales as long as their valves. Anthers f to 1 line long. 
Habitdt : Natal. The Dargle, 3400 feet alt., Woodhouse in Government 
Herbarium, 9177. 
Drawn from the Dargle specimen, the only one in our Herbarium. Introduced. 
Native of Europe, Siberia and North Africa, introduced into most temperate 
regions of both hemispheres. 
" A well known perennial pasture grass of considerable fattening property. 
For rich soil better grasses can be chosen, but for moist, moory or sandy lands, and 
also for forests, it is one of the most eligible pasture-grasses, yielding an abundant 
and early crop ; it is, however, rather disliked by cattle and horses. Bears 
continued p'razincj oft'extremelv well " — Baron F. v. Mueller. 
1. A sjtikelet ; 2, lower olume ; 3, upper ghinie ; 4, Horets ; o, lower valve ; 6, pale ; 
7, pistil, staint iis and lodicules ; 8, upper valve. All eiilaryed. 
