LOLI UM temulentum.
Bearded Darnel.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G e n . C har. Cal. of 1 valve, fixed, many-flowered.
Florets in 2 ranks.
S pec. Char. Flowers bearded. Spikelets fhorfer
than the calyx. Florets elliptical. Stem rough
in the upper part.
Sy n . Lolium temulentum. Linn. Sp. P i. 122, Sm.
FI. B rit. 150. W ith . 168. Hull. 27. Iielh. 45.
Abbot, a 6.
L . album. Raii Syn. 395.
j f x N annual weed, found occafionally in fields among wheat,
barley or flax, coming to perfection in July.
The root is formed of a few fhort downy fibres*. Stem one
or more, ereCt, two feet high, round, ftriated, leafy; fmooth
and thining below; rough upwards. Leaves lanceolate, fpread-
ing, grafs-green, ribbed, rough above. Their flieaths are alfo
roughifli. Stipula fliort, blunt, crenate. Spike long and
upright, with an angular rough ftalk. Spikelets alternate;
in 2 ranks, a little tumid. Calyx of one, linear, flattifh,
beardlefs hufk, rough to the touch, moftly accompanied, in
the lower fpikelets, with a much fliorter elliptical inner valve,
prefled clofe to the excavation of the common ftalk, fo that
the generic character is-not ftridtly exadt in every cafe. Florets
clofely ranged in a two-ranked fpikelet, which does not in
general reach above half the height of the correfponding calyx.
Their glumes are elliptical, tumid, each tipped with a long
ftraight, rough awn; the margin of the outer glume membranous,
o f the inner rough. Seed flattifh.
The feeds of this grafs are reported to be intoxicating to men,
beafts, and birds, and even to bring on convulfions and death.
It is not common enough with us to be extenfivelv dangerous.