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MR. G. C. DRUCE ON POA LAXA AND POA STRICTA. 421 
On Poa laxa and Poa stricta of our British Floras. 
By G. CrartpaE Drocr, M.A., F.LS. 
[Read 19th March, 1903. } 
For some years past doubts have been expressed by many 
botanists, including Professor Hackel, as to the correct naming 
of the above grasses. The subject has for some time interested 
me, and I have paid three visits in different years to Lochnagar 
in order to see the plants growing in their native habitat. I 
have also, through the kindness of Professor Marshall Ward, 
had the privilege of examining the Poas in the late Professor 
Babington’s Herbarium, in which are specimens of both the 
above plants, including the earliest known gathering of Poa laxa 
in Britain. Thanks to the officials of the British Museum, I 
have also seen the British specimens contained in the Herbarium 
there. I have had lent me by Mr. John Knox the specimens 
collected by George Don from Lochnagar; and Mr. F. J. 
Hanbury has kindly allowed me to consult the beautiful series 
contained in the Boswell-Syme Herbarium, which includes Syme’s 
types of the third edition of ‘ English Botany’; and, lastly, 
thanks to our Secretary, Mr. Daydon Jackson, the Smithian 
Herbarium is now made easily accessible, and it is very inter- 
esting from its containing Mackay’s original specimen of Poa 
flexuosa, as well as a specimen which had been one year in 
cultivation ; and also Don’s specimens called flexuosa, from Ben 
Nevis and Lochnagar. 
My examination of these specimens and my field-work have 
led me to the following conclusions, which I hope the Fellows 
of this Society may not think I am too rash in putting before 
them. 
Before venturing to give a decisive opinion as to the proper 
name to be assigned to Smith’s P. flexuosa, I should like to visit 
Ben Nevis this year to study the plant, if I am fortunate enough 
to discover it, in the living state. This much, however, I can 
with some confidence assert, that it is not the Poa flexuosa of 
Wahlenberg’s ‘Flora Suecica, n. 108, since that belongs to the 
P. cenisia group. Nor is it the Poa laxa of Willdenow, to which 
Sir W. Hooker was the first to refer it, in the ‘ Flora Scotica,’ 
p- 34 (1821), where the E.B. plate for flecuosa is cited and 
Smith’s description virtually adopted. Nor is it the P. Jawa of 
Haenke, as Babington, in his first edition of the ‘Manual of 
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