F E S T U C A loliacea.
Spiked Fescue-grass.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G en. Char. Cal. o f 2 valves. Spihelet oblong, somewhat
cylindrical, two-ranked, with sharp-pointed
glumes.
Spec. Char. Spike two-ranked, drooping. Spikelets
nearly sessile, linear-oblong. Florets cylindrical,
without awns or dorsal ribs.
Syn. Festuca loliacea. Huds. ed. 1. 38. Sm. FI. Brit. 122.
With. 157. Hull. 24. Relh. 38. Sibth. 45. Curt.
Land. fasc . 6. t. 9. Knapp t. 74.
F. fluitans (3. Huds. 47-
F. elongata. Ehrh. Calam. 93.
Graminis loliacei vulgaris varietas spicis rarius dispositis.
Moris, sect. 8. t. 2. f . 2.
N o t unfrequent in rich, rather moist, pastures and meadows,
flowering in July, though its great resemblance to Lolium
perenne, t. 315, occasions it to be generally overlooked.
Root perennial, fibrous. Stems erect, 2 feet high, simple,
slender, leafy, round, smooth. Leaves linear, narrow, flat,
ribbed, smooth, with long' sheaths and very short stipulas.
Spike long and lax, a little drooping, the spikelets upright,
mostly sessile, in 2 ranks, alternate,- linear-oblong, acute,
many-flowered, awnless, smooth. Calyx of 2 very unequal,
acute valves; the outermost strongly ribbed, npt keeled.
Florets somewhat loosely ranged, acute, cylindrical, smooth,
without any keel or rib, except 2 small nerves near each
margin: the inner valves about as large, flat, downy at the
edge.
The 2-valved calyx and paler hue clearly distinguish it from
Lolium perenne, as the acute florets, without any central ribs,
do from all the varieties of Poa fluitans, t. 1520. Neither
can we conceive this plant to be a hybrid production. Its
seeds indeed are rarely ripened, because the roots increase
very fast. It is esteemed a good pasture grass.