461 
roughish on both sides. Perennial; flowers in August. Culms 1 to 3 feet 
high. Introduced. Wisconsin (?), Michigan, and about Lake Superior. 
92. Triticum Dasystachyum. Gray. 
Syn. —T. repens, var. dasystachyum, Hook. 
Rhizoma creeping; leaves narrow, mostly involute, very smooth and glau¬ 
cous; spikelets downy-hairy all over, whitish, five to nine flowered; glumes 
five to seven nerved; rachis rough on the edges; awn sometimes about half 
the length of the flower, sometimes nearly wanting. Perennial; flowers in 
August. Culms 1 to 3 feet high. Wisconsin and Michigan, 
93. Triticum Compositum. Linnaeus. 
f 
Egyptian wheat. 
Spikes compound; spikelets awned, villous, crowded. Cultivated only as a 
matter of curiosity. 
I 
GENUS 35. LOLIUM. Linnaeus . 
[Latin, Lolium, the ancient name of one of the species.] 
Spikelets many-flowered, sessile, solitary, and placed edgewise on the con¬ 
tinuous rachis; glume only one, external; flowers naked at the base; lower 
palea lanceolate, mucronate,or with a short awn at tip; upper one two-keeled; 
spike simple. 
94. Lolium Perenne. Linnaeus. 
Darnel; ray-grass; rye-grass. 
Glume much shorter than the spikelet; flowers six to nine, usually awnless, 
sometimes awn-pointed; seed oblong, compressed, convex on one side, fur¬ 
rowed lengthwise on the other; palea adherent. Perennial; flowers in June. 
Culms 1 to 2 feet high. Introduced and occasionally cultivated. A native of 
Europe and Asia. 
This grass, which is quite a favorite in England, has been but sparingly in¬ 
troduced here. It produces an abundance of seed, which is easily collected 
and readily vegetates on most kinds of soil under circumstances of different 
management; it soon arrives at perfection, and produces in its first years of 
growth a good supply of early herbage, which is much liked by cattle. But 
the after-growth is very inconsiderable; the plant impoverishes the soil in a 
high degree, and soon dies out, It was first cultivated in Great Britain about 
