[ 2221 ]
'AVENA fatua.
Wild Oat, or Haver.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G en. Char. Call o f 2 valves, containing several florets.
Outer valve of the corolla bearing a twisted awn
on its back.
Spec. Ch ar. Panicle erect. Flowers drooping. Calyx
containing about three florets, which are hairy at the
lower part, all awned, and ribless.
Syn . Avena fatua. Linn. Sp. PL 118. Sm. FI. Brit. 139.
H u d s .52. With. 164. Hull. ed. 2. 3 4 . Relh. 4 2 .
Sibth. 4 9 . Abbot. 2 4 . Winch, v. 1 . 12 . Mart.
Rust. t. 8 1 . Knapp, t. 93. Leers. 4 2 . t. 9. f . 4.
iEgilops quibusdam, aristis recurvis, seu Avena pilosa.
Raii Syn. 3 8 9 .
m
A PERNICIOUS weed in corn fields, especially among barley,
flowering in July or August.
Root annual, with downy, somewhat whorled, fibres. Stem
erect, simple, about a yard high, slightly leafy, very smooth.
Leaves linear, spreading, ribbed, rough, occasionally hairy
as well as their sheaths, which are thinner than the leaf itself,
and generally smooth. Stipula obtuse, toothed and jagged.
Panicle much branched, erect, the branches half whorled,
rough, spreading, partly divided, capillary and drooping near
the summit, but greatly thickened at the top. Flowers the
size of the cultivated Oat, with a large, green, ribbed, smooth,
nearly equal-Valved calyx, rather longer than the florets, which
are about 3, hairy in the lower part and around the scar of insertion,
which is obliquely placed, not transversely like A. sa~
tiva. The corolla is scarcely ribbed, sharp-pointed, with a
strong long awn from the middle of its outer valve, which,
like the corolla, turns dark brown, and the hairs tawny, as
the seed ripens. This awn is a celebrated hygrometer among
natural philosophers. That of the exotic A . sterilis is still
larger and more remarkable.