2. A. dasystàchyum, Vasey. Resembling the last; glaucous; leaves narrow and often involute; the 5–9-flowered spikelets densely downy-hairy all over; glumes thinner with scarious margins, mostly long-acuminate. (Triticum dasystachyum, Gray.)—Sandy shores of Lake Huron and Superior, and northward. Aug.
[*][*] No obvious running rootstocks, glabrous, or the flat and roughish leaves sometimes hairy above; glumes as well as flowers mostly awned or awn-pointed.
3. A. violàceum, Lange. Spike short, dense, strict and rigid, usually tinged with violet or purple; spikelets 3–5-flowered; glumes conspicuously 5-nerved, rather abruptly narrowed into a cusp or short awn. (Triticum violaceum, Hornem.)—Alpine region of the White Mts., L. Superior, north and westward. (Eu.)—Passing into a variety with longer usually pale narrow spikes and attenuate often long-awned glumes, which sometimes approaches A. caninum. N. Brunswick, White Mts., N. H., Penn. (Porter), L. Superior, and westward.
4. A. canìnum, R. & S. (Awned Wheat-Grass.) Spike usually more or less nodding, at least in fruit, rather dense (3–6´ long); spikelets 3–5-flowered; glumes 3–5-nerved; awns straight or somewhat bent or spreading, fully twice the length of the palet. (Triticum caninum, L.)—Sparingly naturalized in cultivated ground and meadows. Indigenous along our northern borders, and westward. (Eu.)
5. A. ténerum, Vasey. Culms 1–3° high; leaves narrow; spike very narrow, 2–7´ long; spikelets 3–5-flowered; glumes short-acuminate.—Minn. to Kan., and very common westward.
73. LEPTÙRUS, R. Br.
Spikelets 1–2-flowered, solitary and alternate upon the opposite sides of a narrow spike, sessile and appressed in the concave joints. Empty glumes transverse, narrow, rigid, 5-nerved, the flowering much shorter, thin and hyaline.—Low annuals, branching at the base, with narrow leaves and rigid often curved spikes. (Name from λεπτός, narrow, and οὐρά, tail, or spike.)
L. incurvàtus, Trin. Much branched, decumbent, 6´ high or less; spikes terminal and lateral, 1–4´ long, the base included in the broad sheath.—Borders of brackish marshes, Md. to S. Va., and on ballast northward. (Nat. from Eu.)
74. HÓRDEUM, Tourn. Barley. ([Pl. 11.])
Spikelets 1-flowered, with an awl-shaped rudiment on the inner side, three at each joint of the rhachis of a terminal spike, but the lateral ones usually imperfect or abortive, and short-stalked. Empty glumes side by side in front of the spikelets, 6 in number, forming a kind of involucre, slender and awn-pointed or bristle-form. Flowering glume and palet herbaceous, the former (anterior) convex, long-awned from the apex. Stamens 3. Grain oblong, commonly adherent.—Spike often separating into joints. Ours annuals or biennials, or scarcely perennial. (The ancient Latin name.)