BuizA. Linn. 
Spikei.ets many flowered, laterally compressed, panicled ; rhachilla disarticulating 
above the glumes and between the valves ; florets hermaphrodite, the upper gradually 
reduced. Glumes scarious or firmly membranous, keeled or boat-shaped or saccate 
with the back rounded, persistent, 3- to sub-7-nerved, subequal. Valves close, firmly 
membranous with scarious margins or almost wholly scarious, keeled or boat-shaped 
or saccate Avith the back rounded, obtuse, acute, subacuminate or subaristate, 7-9-nerved, 
outer o, or all the side-nerves spreading from a common base, rarely 5-nerved with 
the side-nerves distant at the base. Pales broad, shorter than the valves, 2 -keeled, 
keels often winged. Lodicules 2, obliquely ovate, hyaline, fleshy at the base. Stamens 
o. Ovary glabrous ; styles short, distinct ; stigmas very slender, loosely plumose, 
laterally exserted. Grain tightly embraced by the hardened back of the valve and 
the pale, usually adherent to the latter, concavo-convex to plano-convex, usually 
dorsally compressed ; hilum basal, small, elli])tic oblong or linear ; em]:)ryo small. 
Annual oh Perennial ; blades flat and i-ather broad or convolute and narrow, 
ligules hyaline. Panicle effuse with capillarv branchlets and pedicels and nodding 
spikelets, sometimes reduced to a raceme or straight, contracted or almost spiciform. 
Species about 11 ; four mainly in the Mediterranean region, of which two have 
been introduced into various temperate countries, one all over temperate Europe and 
Asia, the rest in South America. 
PLATE 494. 
Briza minor, Linn. (Fl. Cap., Vol. YIL, p. 709). 
Nat. Order Graminea\ 
Annual, glabrous. — Culms tufted, geniculate, ^ to 2 feet long, smooth or some- 
what rough above, 2 to 3-noded ; internodes exserted, at least ultimately ; sheaths 
loose, smooth, the lower thin, striate ; ligules oblong, 2-3 lines long ; blades linear to 
lanceolate-linear, acute, 2 to <S inches, by 1^ to lines, flat, flaccid, more or less 
scabrid or almost smooth. 
Panicle broadly obovate, 2 to 4 inches long and almost as broad, erect, lax, 
rather divaricate ; rhachis slender, straight ; branches geminate, distantly and 
repeatedly tri- or di-chotomously ])ranched, scabrid, filiform to capillary, the lowest 
up to 3 inches long ; pedicels G-2 lines long, finely capillary, smooth above. 
Spikelets triangular to ovate, very obtuse, often broader than long, 1|- to 2 lines 
long, 4 to 7 -flowered, nodding, green, rarely purplish below. 
Glumes thinly scarious, horizontally spreading, subequal, obtuse or subacute, 
3-nerved, 1 to 1;]: line long, ^'al\•es very close, very broadly cordate-ovate, very 
obtuse with the ti])s often inflexed, very gibbous l)elow, 1 to Ij line long, glabrous, 
7 -nerved, the side-nerves joining at the base, hyaline margins very broad ; pales 
elliptic, scarcely | line long, finely winged, wings very niinutelv ciliolate ; lodicules up 
to J line long ; anthers almost ^ line long in the lower florets, much smaller in the 
upper ; grain shortly oblong, truncate, con\'exo-concave or subtriquetrous, broadly 
grooved, f line long. 
Mediterranean regions ; introduced into many parts of the world. 
Hdbitclt : Natal. Near Durban, IWxx/, in Government Herbarium, 10,450. 
Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; 3, valve iu profile ; 4, same, front view ; 5, pale ; 
6, pistil, stamens and lodicules. A/l enlarged. 
