Arundo Phragmites, L.
Palea narrow and long, 10-11 mm., delicate, entire, tapering to an acuminate point, violet, three-nerved, smooth. Caryopsis about 2 mm. A pencil of long silky hairs on the rachilla.
The long acuminate point is almost an awn.
Calamagrostis also has long basal hairs: both are useless grasses agriculturally. For Glyceria see note, p. [146]. Avena, Aira and Psamma are easily distinguished.
✲✲ Pencil of hairs short.
† Palea mucronate, 11-12 mm. long: caryopsis 4·5 mm.
Psamma arenaria.
Digraphis differs in the stout caryopsis, smaller size, double hair-tuft. Arundo has a long pointed palea and long silky basal hairs and is larger.
Psamma arenaria, Beauv.
Palea 11·5 mm. ovate-lanceolate, papery, 4-5 nerved, as rolled round the fruit about 1·3 mm. diameter, yellow, and with a small tuft of stiff fine hairs at the base. Mere trace of awn, sub-terminal. Fruit 4-5 mm. long, obovate, pale-brown.
A shore-grass, not often seen as “seed": more valuable as a sand-binder than as fodder, though the young shoots are grazed.
†† Palea acuminate, and only about 4 mm. long: caryopsis 1·4 mm.
Digraphis arundinacea.
A Fen-grass, but coarse and not in use except the young growth, and for thatching.