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s. The adult male has a long, tapering tail. Called also gray duck, piketail, piket-tail, spike-tail, split-tail, springtail, sea pheasant, and gray widgeon.

but especially the P. major, a low herb with broad spreading radical leaves, and slender spikes of minute flowers. It is a native of Europe, but now found near the abode of civilized man in nearly all parts of the world. Indian plantain. (Bot.) See under Indian. -- Mud plantain, a homely North American aquatic plant…

A rustic; a countryman; a field laborer. Plowman's spikenard (Bot.), a European composite weed (Conyza squarrosa), having fragrant roots. Dr. Prior.

ndidissima). -- Plume grass. (Bot) (a) A kind of grass (Erianthus saccharoides) with the spikelets arranged in great silky plumes, growing in swamps in the Southern United States. (b) The still finer E. Ravennæ from the Mediterranean region. The name is sometimes extended to the whole genus. -- Plume moth (Zoöl.), an…

ned beneath the great ligament of the neck. -- Poll pick (Mining), a pole having a heavy spike on the end, forming a kind of crowbar. -- Poll tax, a tax levied by the head, or poll; a capitation tax.

uminous genus Petalostemon, having small rosy or white flowers in dense terminal heads or spikes. Several species occur in the prairies of the United States. -- Prairie dock (Bot.), a coarse composite plant (Silphium terebinthaceum) with large rough leaves and yellow flowers, found in the Western prairies. -- Prairie…

A small marline spike having generally a wooden handle, -- used in sailmaking. R. H. Dana, Ir.

d Polygonum orientale), with apetalous reddish flowers arranged in long recurved panicled spikes. -- Prince's metal, Prince Rupert's metal. See under Metal. Prince's pine. (Bot.) See Pipsissewa.

A very small deer (Pudua humilis), native of the Chilian Andes. It has simple spikelike antlers, only two or three inches long.

(a) One of several grasses of the genus Briza, having slender-stalked and pendulous ovate spikelets, which quake and rattle in the wind. Briza maxima is the large quaking grass; B. media and B. minor are the smaller kinds. (b) Rattlesnake grass (Glyceria Canadensis).

handsome American grass (Glyceria Canadensis) with an ample panicle of rather large ovate spikelets, each one composed of imbricated parts and slightly resembling the rattle of the rattlesnake. Sometimes called quaking grass. -- Rattlesnake plantain (Bot.), See under Plantain. -- Rattlesnake root (Bot.), a name given…

A branch of inflorescence; the zigzag axis on which the florets are arranged in the spikelets of grasses.

The principal axis in a raceme, spike, panicle, or corymb.

e. -- Rush grass, any grass of the genus Vilfa, grasses with wiry stems and one-flowered spikelets. -- Rush toad (Zoöl.), the natterjack. -- Scouring rush (Bot.) Same as Dutch rush, under Dutch. -- Spike rush, any rushlike plant of the genus Eleocharis, in which the flowers grow in dense spikes. -- Sweet rush, a s…

The banner fish, or spikefish (Histiophorus.)

ng the tail of a squirrel; -- generally said of branches which are close and dense, or of spikes of grass like barley.

s, often growing in dense tufts in marshy places. They have triangular jointless stems, a spiked inflorescence, and long grasslike leaves which are usually rough on the margins and midrib. There are several hundred species.

A short steel spike used for driving the head of a nail below the surface.

A fleshy spike of flowers, usually inclosed in a leaf called a spathe.

anish windlass (Naut.), a wooden roller, with a rope wound about it, into which a marline spike is thrust to serve as a lever.