LOLIUM TEMULENTUM. BEARDED 
DARNEL. 
Class III. TRIANDRIA.— Order II. DIGYNIA. 
Natural Order, GRAMINEJL THE GRASS TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) spikelet; (6) under glume; (c) floret; (d) germen, and styles. 
This is one of the rarer British grasses. It has been generally regarded as not unfrequent in many parts 
of England. Dr. Boud, of Geneva, in his Inaugural Thesis, published at Edinburgh in 1817, enumerates it 
amongst the scarce plants of Scotland. Sir William Hooker, in his Flora Scotica, informs us, that it is 
occasionally found in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. It is an annual, growing spontaneously in corn-fields 
among wheat, barley, and flax ; and flowering in July. 
The culm or stalk is rough in the upper part, erect, cylindrical, striated, three or four feet high, and clothed 
at the joints, which are from three to five in number, with linear pointed leaves, a foot or more in length, 
rough on the upper surface, but smooth below, and of a pale green colour. The sheaths are roughish, 
striated, and crowned with a short blunt ligula, slightly notched at the edge. The inflorescence is an erect 
spike, frequently a foot or more in length. The spikelets are erect, sessile, disposed in two rows, alternately 
along the rachis or common receptacle, each containing many flowers. The single valve ofthe glume is the 
length of the spikelet, awl-shaped, and without any awn ; the terminal flower of each spikelet, and frequently 
the lower ones are furnished with a minute elliptical inner valve. The glumelle consists of two unequal valves ; 
the outer only half the length of the glume ; it is edged with white, and puts forth below the tip a straight 
awn, twice its own length. The filaments are three ; capillary, shorter than the glumelle, and supporting 
oblong anthers, cloven at each end. The germen is turbinate ; styles two, very short ; stigmas feathery 
along the upper side. The seeds are solitary, elliptical, convex on one side, compressed, and attached to the 
inner valve of the glumelle. In some specimens the awns are very short, or altogether wanting. This is 
the only species of the extensive natural order, Gramina, that is known to possess deleterious qualities. 
Is generally met with in corn-fields, especially amongst wheat, where to a bad farmer it proves a troublesome 
and noxious weed. 
“Being an annual plant, (remarks Mr. Sinclair, in his Hortus Gramineus Wobernenis,) it may be 
easily kept under, or totally extirpated, by the practice of the drill mode of husbandry.” 
Qualities. — The seeds are inodorous, and have a slight bitterish, disagreeable taste. They are said 
to redden the blue colour of vegetables. 
Poisonous Effects and Morbid Appearances. — Haller states, that this species of Lolium 
possesses intoxicating effects, as its trivial name temulentum implies ; and whether baked into bread, or 
fermented into ale, it is attended by very disagreeable, and even fatal effects. It produces headache, vertigo, 
lethargy, drunkenness, difficulty of speech ; and the tongue exhibits a very strong trembling : while Seeger 
remarks, that a trembling of the body is one of the most certain signs of poisoning by this plant. It also 
affects with blindness for several hours, and is thus commemorated by Ovid in his Fasti : 
“ Et careant loliis oculos vitiantibus agri 
Nec sterilis culto surgat avena solo.” 
And this property has given rise to the proverb, “He feeds on Darnel,” which refers to a dim-sighted 
person : thus Plautus, in the scene refered to above, where Paleestro inquiring what Sceledrus meant by his 
living on darnel, receives this answer, Quia lusciosos, “ because you are purblind.” By the Chinese laws 
(for this plant is found in China and Japan,) it is forbidden to be used in fermented liquors. According to 
Withering, dogs are particularly affected by darnel; geese, and horses, are killed by it; but a small quantity 
mixed with their food, is said to fatten chickens and hogs. 
The subjoined cases, communicated to the Editors of the Medical and Physical Journal, by Mr. Marsh, 
Surgeon to the 2nd Wiltshire Militia, fully illustrate the symptoms produced by the Lolium temulentum in 
England ; and it will be perceived, that the bread, of which it was composed, excited the more violent 
effects when eaten hot : a fact previously noticed by Linnaeus. 
“ In the month of September, a sack of leased wheat; with an equal quantity of tarling wheat, (i. e. the - 
refuse seeds which pass the sieve, abounding very much with darnel (lolium), which by the generality of 
people, where the plant is much known, is called cheat, were ground and dressed together, and in the 
evening about ten o’clock bread was made of a part of it. Of this bread James Edmonds, about thirty- 
