HILLS, DRY PLACES, ETC. 



99 



riiplcd. The spikclels are grouped. The empty 

 ijlumes arc linear to oblong', bhnit below, the keel 

 smooth or fringed with hairs. The awn is awl- 

 like, short, rigid, leathery, green, the border white 

 dotted. The flowering glume is very small. The 

 anthers are linear to oblong. The plant is 12-18 

 in. high, flowering IVom June to August, and is an 

 annual or perennial, and herbaceous. 



Crested Hair Grass (Koclcria cristala, Pers. = 

 A", gracilis^ Tcrs.). — The habitat of this plant is 

 dry p.istures and b.inks. The plant Ivas the grass 

 habit, and is downy or silky, pale-green. The 

 root is slender, the plant sloloniferous. The stem 

 is slender, downy, especially above. The leaves 

 are narrow, rough at the edges, fringed with hairs, 

 hairless below, with inrolled margins, adapted to 

 dry conditions. The sheaths are furrowed. There 

 is no ligule. The panicle is linear, oblong, lance- 

 shaped, silvery, interrupted below, nearly hairy, 

 the branches short, lobed. The spikelets are pale- 

 green, shining. The empty glumes are oblong, 

 lance-shaped, acute, smooth. The keel is roughish. 

 The flowering glumes are linear, lance-shaped, 

 rough, blunt. The plant is 6-12 in. high, flowering 

 in June and July, and is a herbaceous perennial. 

 Koelcria glancay D.C. = v. arcnarin^ Dum. — 

 This species or variety occurs in 5 vice-counties 

 from Sutherland to Dorset. The plant differs in 

 having acute, not long, narrow pointed, flowering 

 glumes. 



Poa ceiiisia, .•\11. =v. flexuosa, Wahl. — This 

 species has been found in i vice-county in Great 

 Britain, but is doubtful. 



Limestone False Brome Grass (Bmchypodhim 

 piniialiini, Beauv. ).— The habitat of this plant is 

 downs, hedgerows, on dry limestone soils. The 

 plant has the grass habit. The plant is bluish- 

 green. The rootstock is creeping. The stems are 

 numerous, erect, slender, round. The leaves are 

 rigid, nearly hairless, flat, or with inrolled mar- 

 gins, linear lance-shaped. The ligule is short and 

 blunt, fringed with hairs. The sheaths are nearly 

 hairless. The panicle is nearly erect, spike-like, 

 with a flat, smooth rachis, the spikelets small, 

 smooth, first round, alternate in 2 rows (hence 

 pinnalum)^ curved away from the rachis, green 

 and purple. The glumes are hairless, the tips of 

 the flowering glumes shortly curved. The plant 

 is 1-3 ft. high, and flowers in July, being a herb- 

 aceous perennial. 



Order Caryophyllace^ 



{See also p. 90) 



Field Mouse Ear (Cerastium arvense, Linn.). No 

 seeds of this plant have been found in preglacial 

 beds. Its distribution is Europe, Arctic, X. Africa, 

 Siberia, \V. Asia to the Himalayas, N. .Xmerica, 

 Fucgia, Chili. This species is found in 69 vice- 

 counties in Great Britain, and in Ireland, occurring 

 generally, except in those cited by number (see vol. 



I. pp. 67-69, for reference to counties by number), 

 as follows; — i, 2, 4, 5, 9 to II, 35, 37, 41 to 4S, 59, 

 (XI, 75, 76, 78 to 79, 84, 88-9, 97 to 112. It is more 

 general south of Inverness, rarer in Scotland and 

 in Ireland. 



In its habitat it is much more confined to hilly 

 regions, being found in sandy fields, waste places, 

 in arable fields, sometimes on quite stony ground. 



Having a more erect or rigid habit than its near 

 ally Ccrasliiim vulgatum (Sect. IX), it has short 

 stems with branches 6-10 in. long, tufted ascend- 

 ing, with lateral shoots, and glandular, hairy all 

 round. The le.-ivesare linear, lanceolate, crowded 

 on the basal shoots. 



Its flowers are white, larger than in C. vulgalum, 

 in many flowered cymes, the 5 petals, bifid, twice 

 as long as the 5 sepals, which are oblong, lanceo- 

 late, erect, the sepals and bracts being more or 

 less acute, the tip and margins membranous. 

 The capsules are inclined, a little longer than the 

 sepals, on an erect fruit stalk. The surface of the 

 seeds is covered with acute tubercles. 



A perennial species. Field Mouse Ear flowers 

 between April and August. 



Pollination is much as in the Greater Stitchwort 

 (see Sect. VI). The flowers being white are con- 

 spicuous. The anthers mature as a rule before 

 the stigmas. The honey is half-concealed in nec- 

 taries and secreted much as in Stellaria aqualica 

 (Sect. VIII). There is every encouragement given 

 in the nature of the floral mechanism and its adapta- 

 tion to insects for cross-pollination by the agency 

 of insects, but in their absence self-pollination is not 

 precluded. In addition to bisexual flowers there 

 are occasionally smaller ones which have only stig- 

 mas, and only degenerate stamens if they have 

 any. It generally has the hermaphrodite and female 

 flowers on different plants, but occasionally the 

 hermaphrodite and female flowers occur on the 

 same plant. Occasionally there are hermaphrodite 

 flowers of two sizes. Insect visitors include various 

 beetles, flies, bees, butterflies and moths, and thy- 

 sanopterous insects. 



Dispersal of the seeds takes place by the aid of 

 the wind, the capsule being open above, and acts 

 as a " censer " fruit, the seeds being jerked out by 

 the wind. 



Field Mouse Ear is a sandy-soil plant, and aren- 

 ophilous. 



The fungal and insect pests are few, and as in 

 C. vulgatum {gu. vide, ibid.), 



Xo other English names have been used for this 

 plant, which is not so well known as the Mouse 

 Ear Chickweed. 



It has no medicinal properties, and there is no 

 use to which it has been put so far. 



Essential Specific Chars. Stem prostrate, wir)-, 

 tufted, leaves linear- lanceolate, downy, petals 

 longer than the calyx, white, bracts membraneous 

 on margin and at tip. April to .August. 



