Annual. — Flowers from May to July. 
Root small, fibrous. Culms ( stems) slender, upright, from 2 to 
6 inches or a foot high, cylindrical, jointed, smooth, leafy. Leaves 
few, slender, strap-shaped, short ; those near the root soon wither- 
ing ; sheaths smooth, purplish, ribbed and striated. Stipula 
fligulaj large, spear-shaped, pointed, bifid. Panicle spreading, 
trichotomous, few-flowered ; branches hair-like, angular, com- 
pressed, channelled, nearly smooth, slightly wavy. Spikelets (see 
fig. 1.) small, egg-shaped, silvery, often purplish-grey. Glumes 
(see fig. 1.) nearly equal, egg-spear-shaped, irregularly notched, 
rough at the keel and near the pellucid point, margins finely ser- 
rated. Palcae (see fig. 2.) unequal, shorter than the glumes, the 
outer one largest, spear-shaped, rough, bristly near the point and 
edges, bifid, with a rough, twisted, slightly bent awn, proceeding 
from below its middle, longer than the glumes ; inner palea bifid, 
with 2 smooth marginal ribs and incurved edges. 
This elegant little grass is of no value to the farmer, as it furnishes 
but little herbage, and soon withers away ; and unless it be sought 
for about the season of its flowering, it will not easily be discovered. 
The species most likely to be confounded with this by the young 
Botanist, is Aira prcecox, but that is sufficiently marked by its very 
small size, spike-like panicle, and the inflated angular sheaths of 
its leaves. The white-pointed glumes, and smaller spikelets, of 
Aira caryophyllea, will distinguish it from Aira Jlexuosa, another 
nearly allied species. 
WEEDS. 
“ Scorn not those rude, unlovely things, 
All culturcless that grow. 
And rank, o’er woods, and wilds, and springs, 
Their vain luxuriance throw. 
Eternal love and wisdom drew 
The plan of earth and skies, 
And He, the span of heaven that threw. 
Commands the weeds to rise. 
Then think not nature’s scheme sublime 
These common things might spare : — 
For science may detect in time 
A thousand virtues there.” 
Chambers' Edinburgh Journal. 
