164 
ENGLISH BOTANY. 
arching-reflexed in flower and fruit, finely setosely-scabrous. Spike- 
lets drooping, linear-elliptical before flowering, oblong and enlarged 
upwards during flowering, and ultimately oblong-wedge- shaped, with 
straight sides, 4- to lO-flowered. Glumes lanceolate-subulate, very 
acute, but not awned, broadly scarious on the margins, the upper one 
twice as long as the lower and strongly 3-ribbed, the lower one 
1 -ribbed. Florets scarcely overlapping, but not diverging or at all 
curved outwards in fruit. Lower pale linear-lanceolate-subulate, deeply 
bidentate, with 2 long apical teeth about one- tenth the length of the 
pale, with broad scarious margins and apices, with 7 prominent and 
nearly equidistant ribs, scabrous-puberulent. Awn from the bottom 
of the notch of the pale, a little longer than the pale, usually about 
one-fourth longer, straight in flower and fruit. Stamens 3. 
In dry places, especially by road-sides. Frequent in England and 
the south of Scotland, but rather rare, or at least local, north of the 
Forth and Clyde, though extending to Elgin, Banff, and the neigh- 
bourhood of Glasgow. Local, but widely distributed, in Ireland. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Biennial or Annual. Summer. 
Stem 18 inches to 3 feet high. Longest leaves 3 to 8 inches long, 
by I- to ; inch broad. Panicle 6 to 10 inches long. Spikelets f to 
14 inch long, exclusive of the awns. Florets |^ to f inch long, 
exclusive of the awn. Awns | to 1 inch long. Pedicels of the 
literal spikelets nearly as long as the spikelets. 
B. sterilis has much the aspect of the large open-panicled forms of 
B. maximus, such as B. Boraii of Jordan, but the panicle is much 
more lax, the branches more capillary, longer, and greatly arching- 
drooping; the rachis not at all pubescent; the spikelets smaller, green 
or purple, with the awns shorter in proportion; glumes more unequal. 
Both B. maximus and B. sterilis are ordinarily biennial, but occa- 
sionally plants of each may be found flowering in autumn — probably 
produced from the earlier ripened seeds of the same year, or else 
from seeds which have remained dormant in the ground until the 
Barren Bro me- Grass. 
French, Bmme sterile, German, Taube Trespe. 
Section. IIL— SERRAFALCUS. Pari 
Spikelets not enlarged towards the apex during flowerino^, 
broadest rather below the middle. Lower pale elliptical or oval, 
concave, rounded on the back, with an awn usually shorter than 
itself, or sometimes absent. 
Biennials or perennials. 
