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OBSERVATIONS ON HOLL’S LIST. 27 
of fresh hay, of Anthoxanthum odoratum, L., Asperula odorata, 
L., or the various kinds of Melilot. 
“Dicksonia Culcita, L'Herit." Since Mr. Höll was in Ma- 
dera, I have met with it in tolerable abundance in some parts 
of the north, far in the recesses of the mountains. 
I come now to the Phenogamous Plants. 
* Avena strigosa. Schreb." If by this it be intended to 
designate the very common wild oat of Madera, which may 
reasonably be supposed, since it is otherwise altogether omitted, 
the name is surely incorrect; the Madera plant wanting, be 
sides other things, the two terminal awns to the outer glume 
of the corolla, which have caused Schreber's plant to be re- 
ferred to Danthonia of Beauvois. 'The common species of 
Madera is probably Avena Airtula, Lag.; and I have never 
met with any species here at all agreeing with A. strigosa, 
Schreb. 
* Triticum durum, Desf.," is most certainly not ** the only 
species of wheat cultivated in Madera." There are two or 
three species, at least, besides varieties, known to the country 
people: and amongst these I have not discovered T. durum, 
Desf. at all, and I do not think that it exists in the Island. The 
species of most common (almost universal) occurrence, particu- 
larly in the neighbourhood of Funchal, and constituting what 
may be considered the staple produce in grain of Madera, 
belongs to quite a different race or groupe, that of T. estivum, 
L., at once distinguishable from T. durum, Desf., by its 
smooth (not pubescent) glumes, and naked (not villous) spike 
orear. The grains also of Madera Wheat generally are short, 
remarkably plump, and large, and composed almost entirely 
of farina; instead of being long, principally corneous and 
hard, as in T. durum, Desf.; and these qualities are so noto- 
riously characteristic of the wheat of this Island and Porto 
Santo, and have so tended to establish the general opinion of 
its superiority as a staple produce, that it is hard to imagine 
the very inferior properties of T. durum should not have 
altogether prevented its becoming an object of cultivation in 
Madera, in competition with a sort so much better and already 
