The grasses most like this are species of Avena and Aira. The former have two or more perfect flowers, and the only broad-leafed Aira—A. cæspitosa, see p. [117]—is easily distinguished by its leaves and its very small spikelets and short simple awns.
✲✲ Upper flower staminate: lower perfect. Small hairy grasses, with red-veined basal leaf-sheaths and short simple awns.
Holcus.
† Erect, evenly hairy, glumes blunt, awn not protruding. Common.
H. lanatus, L.
†† More or less procumbent, hairs chiefly at the nodes. Glumes pointed. Awns simple and exserted. Rarer.
H. mollis, L.
B. Each spikelet with at least two perfect flowers, often more.
(1) Inflorescence spikate, the main axis bearing sessile or sub-sessile spikelets, each containing three or more flowers.
(a) Spike simple[11], axis stout and notched, each notch having one spikelet closely sessile in it.
(i) Spikelets distichous, the flat side of each—i.e. the edges of the glumes—being next the axis (rachis).
Agropyrum.
✲ A weed with creeping stolons, and no awns or mere points to the glumes.
A. repens, Beauv.
The variety A. junceum found as a sand-binder on sea-coasts is glaucous, stiffer, with sharply pointed leaves, and blunt glumes. For other sand-binders see note, p. [102].