ON A. MONGOLIAN GBAS8 PEODUCINO INTOXICATION. 211 



I received a short while since from Dr. Bretschneider, physician 

 to the Russian Legation at Peking, specimens of a Grass which had 

 been forwarded to the Count de llochechouart, the French Minister at 

 that capital, by a Koman Catholic missionary, accompanied by the 

 following note: — " J'envoie ci-joint un petit paquet d'herbe que les 

 Chinois nomraent tsoui tsao (herbe enivrante). Les Mongols la nom- 

 ment herbe veneneuse. On lu trouve en abondance sur les monta 

 Alachan.* Nous etions alles faire une excursion sur la montagne. 

 Nos chevau.x, ayant probablement mange abondamment de cette herbe 

 la nuit, pouvaient a peine se tenir debout le matin. Une famille 

 mongole campee a cet endroit nous conseilla de donner du vinaigre 

 comme contrepoison. Comme nous n'en avions pas, nous donnamea 

 du lait aigri. On nous indiqua aussi comme remede souverain la 

 decoction d'une tete de chevre. Nous serviraes ce bouillon a no3 

 chevaux, qui s'en trouvaient bien. Les troupeaux de chevaux, boeufs, 

 moutons et chameaux qui paissent sur les montagnes n'en souffrent 

 pas, soit qu'ils eviLent de manger de cette herbe, soit qu'ils s'accoutu- 

 ment a ce poison." 



The specimens received are a good deal broken up, and destitute 

 of root and stem-base, but they suffice for a satisfactory examination, 

 end, so far as herbarium materials and the literary resources at my 

 disposal enable me to judge, they belong to an undescribed species of 

 Slipa. 



Exclusive of four species of the osculant section Leptanthele,] re- 

 ferred to Stipa by Turczaninow, to Lasiagrodis by Trinius and 

 Ruprecht,J and distinguished geneiically under the name of Ptila- 

 grostis by Grisebach,§ who, however, subsequently observed!! that it 

 differs only from Stipa by the herbaceous texture of the fruiting 

 glumella and the flexuose, scarcely twisted awn ; there are, I believe, 

 but eleven species of Stipa hitherto recorded as natives of the mountain 

 plateaux or steppes of Central and North-eastern Asia. Six of these^ 

 have plumose awns; of the remaining five** all "bvit Stipa sibiricia,lAnn., 

 differ from the plant of which I am now treating by having the apices 

 of the anther-cells glabrous or inappendiculate. This character, slight 



* " Ala shan Eleuths form one banner ; their country lies west of Ninghiafn 

 in Kan suh, and north of the Great Wall, as far as Gobi. Ala shan ia the 

 name of a chain of mountains on the north of the Yellow river, whence this 

 tribe derives its appellation." (Lobscheid, "Typography of China," 86, who 

 doebtless merely compiles from the native " Geography of China under tho 

 Ta tsing dynasty.") These mountains apparently extend from IQb" to 110" E, 

 long., and from about 39° to perhaps 42° N. lat., in Inner Mongolia, a province 

 the geography of which is very imperfectly known. 



+ Lasiagrostis mongolica, Trin. & Rupr., alpina, Fr. Schmidt, subsessilijlora, 

 Eupr., and tremula, Rupr. (F. 8chmidt, Fl. Amguno-bureiensis, 73, t. 1, ff. 6, 

 7, 8 ; Osten-Sacken & Rupr., Sertum Tianschanicum, 35). 



X Species gram. Stipac, 87. 



§ Ledb. Fl. Ross, iv., 447. The typical species occurs also in the Rocky 

 Mountains (Watson, Bot. of 40th Paral., 381 ; Coulter & Porter, Synops. Fl. 

 Colorado, 145). 



II Nachr. v. d. k. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. a. d. Univ. d. Gottingen, 1868, 82. 



H S. orienialis, Trin , arabica, 3 /Szovitsinna, Trin., breviflora, Griseb., Lessin- 

 giano>< Trin. & Rupr., purpurea, Gtviseh., pennata, Linn. 



*• S. sibirica, Linn., Bungeana, Trin., eapillata, Linn., consanguinea, Trin., 

 Rickteriwtui, Kar. & Kir. 



V 2 



