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J l f l
POA riOgida.
Hard Meadow-grass.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. o f 2 valves, containing many florets.,
Spikelet rounded at the base. . Cor. o f 2 ovate,
pointed, beardless valves.
Spec. Char. Panicle lanceolate, two-ranked, dense,
smooth, leaning one w a y ; its common stalk bordered.
Spikelets o f about seven flowers. Florets
cylindrical, without ribs.
Sy n . Poa rigida. Linn. Sp. PL 101. Sm. FI. Brit. 99.
HucLs. 42. With. 146. Hull. 22. Relh. 33.
Sihth. 42. Abbot. 18. Curt. Londi fasc . 2. t. 4.
Knapp, t. 48.
Gramen exile duriusculum in muris et aridis prove-
niens. Rail Syn. 410.
N o t unfrequent on walls and in dry gravelly places, where
it flowers in June, and soon after becomes entirely dry and
bleached. It may be known readily by the extreme rigidity
of its stems and panicle, which feel at all times as if made of
a stiff wire.
Root annual, fibrous and woolly. Stems several, generally
erect, (except on the dry sands o f the sea shore,) bent at the
lower joint, round, very smooth, often purplish or brown,
leafy in their lower part. Leaves acute, involute, smooth
beneath, rough above. Stipula blunt and torn. Panicle lanceolate,
its branches in two rows, leaning to one side; the
common stalks zigzag, bordered, rough-edged, Spikelets
linear, smooth, neat and elegant, of from 4 to 8 florets,
which are cylindrical, bluntish, roughish towards their summits,
scarcely keeled, and entirely »destitute of lateral ribs
or nerves. Their inner valves are fringed, fhe calyx-glumes
are nearly equal, keeled, acute. Antherre short, deeply two-
lobed.
W e know not that any agricultural projector whatever has
recommended this grass to notice.