HOLCUS MOLLIS.js i«.^.
Long-awned Holcus.
Spec. Chae. Calyx containing two florets; florets both perfect, having stamina and styles;
arista protruding beyond the calyx; root repent.
H olcus mollis is much less seldom found than the preceding species, but is by no mems a rare
plant; its delight is in little shady groves and copses, never intruding into the meadow, or associating
with H . lanatus, excepting in woody places, where both are promiscuously found. The colour o f the
panicle is generally o f a dirty white green;. leaves and sheathing not woolly, but the joints of the straw
are remarkably so: it is a much more slender and elegant plant than the former species, from which
it is immediately known by the length o f its aristae, which are twice as long as the valves of the
calyx. Holcus mollis is occasionally found in patches among com, and is then an injurious weed.
The long-awned Holcus is probably applicable to no agricultural purpose, yet it possesses virtues that
are unknown in the former and cultivated species; being free from the woolly habit of that plant, it
might be more grateful to the mouths o f cattle, and its repent roots would be less injured by severe
frosts than the fibrous one o f Holcus lanatus is known to be.------ The Linnaean arrangement, which
classes Holcus under Polygamia monoecia, is judicious as far as regards H. lanatus, and the latter
introduced plant H. avenaceus, but defective when we include H. mollis, yet the general habitsof
the two plants (mollis, and lanatus) require that they should not be separated, though they differ so
greatly in their internal structure.------ It is rather singular that a plant so well known as H. mollis
is, that two opinions regarding its internal formation should subsist: Linnaeus, and other foreign
writers, describe the upper floret as having stamens only! and most of our English authors, excepting
however Dr. Withering, and Mr. Curtis, express themselves to the same purpose: our examinations
of this plant have been extended to the productions of several comities, and both florets, in all the
specimens, appeared to us. to be invariably perfect.
A, the. Calyx.
By a set of Florets,