DISTRIBUTION OF FESTUCA RUBRA IN BRITAIN. 321 
F. ovina, F. rubra, fallax. 
l. Branches all intravaginal and | 1, Some branches extravaginal, but 
directly ascending. more or less directly ascending. 
2. Leaves all alike, setaceous. | 2, Radical leaves setaceous, cauline 
| ones flat or nearly so. 
9. Radical sheath split almost to 3. Radical sheath entire throughout 
base. | its length. 
4. Radical lamina in transverse sec- | 4. Radical lamina in transverse section 
tion has a continuous or only | has separate small subepidermal 
slightly discontinuous stratum of | strands of sclerenchyma, one 
subepidermal scierenchyma. below each vascular bundle 
(PL 26. tig. 3). 
5. Culm below panicle usually tetra- 5. Culm below panicle usually terete 
gonal, and rough. | and smooth. 
Sp. III. F. sunctrorra St. Am. 1821, p. 40. (PI. 30.) 
F. rubra subsp. dumetorum Hack. 1882, p. 145 (non Linn. 1762). 
F. dumetorum Nym. 1878, p. 827 : 1889, p. 338. 
^ Richt. Pl. Europ. p. 101. 
F. sabulicola Duf. 1325, p. 85. 
F. rubra a, Sm. 1800, p. 116, Yarmouth specimen. 
F. arenaria Breb. 1859, p. 358. 
» Bor. 1857, p. 715. 
Stock scarcely cæspitose ; all or the majority of the branches extensively 
creeping. Culms tall (20-40 em.), stout, rounded, smooth. Sheaths glabrous, 
irregularly fibrous on decaying. Laminæ similar, complicate, juncaceous, 
subeylindrical (1:0 mm. or more diam.) (Pl. 26. fig. 2), rigid, glaucescent, 
internally puberulous, extending into a narrow, acute point, in transverse 
section 7-11-nerved ; a continuous zone of subepidermal selerenchyma 
below in several layers, sometimes united with the bundle sheath of the mid- 
rib, rarely discontinuous, 5- or more costate, each ridge with separate scleren- 
chymatous strand below upper epidermis. Panicle small (4-10 em. long) or 
large (-18 em. long), contracted or loosely effuse. Spikelets large, 9-11 mm. 
long, shortly pedicellate (-1:0 mm. long), elliptical or elliptico-lanceolate, 
yellowish-green, Sterile glumes subulate-lanceolate, subequal, acute; 
second 3-nerved, lateral ones running almost to apex, 2/5rds to 3/4ths 
length of fourth, Fertile glumes lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, broadest 
in the lower half, and from there gradually tapering to the tip, 6-7 mm. 
long, often villose, mucronate or shortly aristate. 
A form growing in damper places on the coast at Skegness, Lincoln, 
v.c. 54, with broader and flatter leaves has been named by Hackel forma 
planifolia. The leaves retain the pungent apex. (See 6d. p. 38, and 
e. pp. 141-2, also f. p. 174.) 
Many of the plants placed under “dumetorum,” or “ sabulicola ” in the 
different herbaria are really rubra, arenaria. The characters of the glumes, 
etc. often leave one undecided, but the unfailing test is to be found in the 
