BROMUS GIGANTEUS. { mo.bh,
Tall smooth-stalked Broom.
< r '
Spec. Chak. Panicle drooping, branched, with about four florets in the spiketj aristae long,
and very fine.
This Bromus attains almost an unlimited height, in dry situations we see it a foot high, and in a
deep soil, or boggy woods we find it six or seven. We have no species of this genus more decidedly
marked than the giganteus j its straw and sheathing are perfectly smooth and shining} the joints are
coloured, as well as the base of the leaves, which clasp round and embrace the stem, otherwise perhaps
such broad 'foliage would by its own weight, or by the agitation o f winds, be stripped from the plant:
the aristae are twice or four times the length of the floret valves, and finer than a hair 5 the inner
valve of the floret is minutely fringed, and full as long as the outer one. Bromus giganteus is the
largest o f the genus,' with the. smallest florets.----------Considering the genus Bromus with the eye of
an agriculturist, we pass it over without any satisfaction, as the whole race, excepting perhaps one
species, afford little sustenance to animal life} chiefly confined to wild and uncultured stations, they
injure not the labours of the fermer, nor do they obviously promote the concerns of rural economy:
were our observations limited to the pasture grasses, or those of manifest utility, our numbers would
be greatly abridged, and our superficial knowledge of the remainder humiliatingly displayed} but
surveying them as a botanist, we collect the species, without attempting to pry into those arcana
which Nature perhaps reserves to herself.
A, part of a Leaf, shewing the claspers at the base, generally shrivelled and
imperfect, excepting when young.
B, the Calyx.
C, the Floret Valves.