[ §75 ]
P A N I C U M viride.
Green Panick-grafs.
*)
6
*TR1A N DRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. o f 3 valves, fingle-fiowered ; the
third valve very fmall. Seed inverted with the
permanent hardened corolla.
Spec. Char. Spike cylindrical ; fpikelets crowded.
Involucra o f feveral briftles, rough with eretrt.
teeth, and embracing two flowers.
S y n . Panicum viride. Linn. Sp. PI. S3. Sm. FI.
Brit. 65. Hudf. 24. With. 115. Hull. 15.
Curt. Lond. fafc. 4. t. 3.
Gramen paniceum,fpicâ fimplici lævi. Rail Syn. 2)93-
A H IS is alfo a native of cultivated ground, but generally
in more dry and fandy places than P. verticillatum, nor is it
efteemed fo rare as that fpecies. We gathered it at Batter-
fea, and have found it about Norwich. It is annual, flowering
at the fame time with the preceding, and is of as little value
to the farmer.
Root fibrous. Stems fpreading, from 3 to 18 inches high,
leafy, rough above. Leaves and flipulse much like the laft.
Spike green or purplilh, compofed of fliort, crowded, irregularly
placed fpikelets, not whorled. Flowers generally in pairs,
furrounded by involucra which greatly exceed them in length,
and which are compofed of about 6 briftles, rough with ereil
teeth, not reflexed as in P. verticillatum, and the fame difference
is. obfervable in the roughnefs of the upper part of the ftem
in each, fo that they can never be confounded with each other.
Indeed the different lengths of the briftles will pretty certainly
ferve to diftinguifh them at firft fight.
Notwithftanding the above characters, the Linncean herbarium
affords reafon to doubt whether Linnaeus was well acquainted
with the limits of thefe two fpecies.