4o8 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



it is a casual. It is found also in the Channel 

 Islands. 



Sandy shores form the habitat of this species, but 

 it is also found in waste places, usually near the sea, 

 as a rule in sandy areas. 



Grass-like in habit, it is more or less prostrate, 

 creeping and rooting at intervals. The stems are 

 stout, woody, with short, more or less erect, smooth 

 branches, leafy and flowering. The leaves are short, 

 awl-like, downy below, stiff, blunt at the tip, with 

 the margins rolled inwards, as in other halophilous 

 types, to resist physiological drought. They are 

 bluish-green with well-marked veins. The leaves on 

 the prostrate barren shoots are in two rows, flat and 

 spreading. The sheaths are pale, hairy at the mouth. 



The flowers are in a short panicle, and the spikes 

 are three to five, slender, digitate, radiating from a 

 common centre, purplish in colour. The rachis is 

 convex with a groove above. The spikelets are over- 

 lapping, purplish. The empty glumes are narrow, 

 ovate, acute, nearly equal, open. The keel is roughish. 

 The flowering glumes are longer, hardened in fruit, 

 smooth at the margin, rough on the keel and edges, 

 three-nerved, awnless. The palea is two-nerved, 

 narrow. The lodicules are fleshy and blunt. There 

 are three stamens. The ovary is smooth. The two 

 styles are long with feathery stigmas. The caryopsis 

 is flattened at the border, enclosed in the flowering 

 glume and palea. 



In height the Dog's-Tooth Grass is 4 to 8 in. It 



