(α) Sections of sheathed leaves acute: either two-edged or four-edged.
(1) Section of sheathed leaves quadrangular. Blades of leaf thin and dry, sparsely hairy. Sheath quite entire. Woods and shady places.
Melica uniflora, L. (Wood Melick). Lamina slightly tapered below, convolute. Ligule obsolete, with a stiff subulate process on the sheath opposite the blade-insertion. Ridges below, but not above.
Melica nutans, L. (Mountain Melick). Ligule longer, and without the awl-shaped peg. Only in Scotland and W. of England.
Both are shade grasses of no agricultural value.
M. uniflora, with its quadrangular shoots and anti-ligular peg, cannot be confounded with any other grass.
(2) Sections of sheathed leaves more or less acutely two-edged, owing to the keels of the compressed equitant leaves.
(i) Shoots broad and fan-like, much compressed, with old brown leaf-sheaths below, sometimes burst by the intra-vaginal branches: leaf ridgeless, with prominent keel. No underground stolons.
Dactylis glomerata, L. (Cock’s-foot). An early and quick-growing pasture-grass, which forms much aftermath. Grows on all soils. Often coarse. Coarse tussocks, and harsh, with broad thick succulent bluish-green leaves.
Section of sheathed leaves acutely naviculate. Prominent obtuse ligule, torn above. Lamina long, rough, acute, with white lines if held up, and serrulate edges. No flanking lines[6]. No stolons (Fig. [6]).
There is a cultivated variety of Dactylis with broad opaque white stripes down the leaves: these are totally different from the translucent white stripes seen on holding the wild form, or Aira cæspitosa, up to the light. Another cultivated “ribbon-grass"—Digraphis—has round shoots, split sheaths, and a different habit, and the same applies to its wild form.
Probably the only serious chances of confusion with Dactylis are between it and Poa pratensis, which also has flattened shoots and closed sheath; but in the latter the section of the shoot is elliptical—not naviculate,—the keel is far less prominent, and the ligule [42] shorter. Moreover P. pratensis is a creeping stoloniferous grass, less harsh, and with less pointed leaves.
The distance to which the sheath is torn may be from 1/8 to 1/2 down. Leaves tend to remain conduplicate. Margins serrulate with teeth extremely short and directed forwards.
(ii) Shoots compressed but narrow: the section almost
rhomboid with rounded edges.
Poa trivialis, L. (Rough-stalked Meadow-grass). Conspicuous in deep rich pastures and orchards, preferring slight shade and rich soil. Valuable pasture and hay grass.