336 THE GRASS FAMILY. 



call it Bromus commutatus. It appears to be the plant figured in E. B. xiii. 920 

 as B. pratensis. 



3. Next there is the form figured in E. B. xv. 1054, as Bromus racemosus. This 

 resembles the common mollis, except that it is nearly glabrous. On the borders 

 of fields, and generally in farm-land, it is not very uucommon. 



Fourthly, there is a tail, corn-field variety, growing two to three feet high, 

 with a loose, more or less drooping and hairy panicle, easily distinguished when 

 in fruit, by the separately roUed-up flowers. This is the Bromus secalinus, figured 

 in E. B. xvii. 1171. It has been gathered at Hough End, and is common among 

 oats, at Mobberley, where the country people call it drook, and believe it to be 

 oats degenerated. (Mr. Holland.) 



36. Giant Drooping Beome-grass — [Bromus gigdnteus.) 

 Woods, groves, thickets, and shady hedge-banks, common every- 

 where. Fl. August, September. 



Curtis, ii. 299 ; E. B. xxvi. 1820 (as Festuca gigantea). 

 Easily distinguished among the late-flowering grasses by its immense and most 

 elegantly drooping and slender panicle, towering above the ferns four to six feet 

 above the ground. The only grass resembling it is the Bromus asper, from which 

 it is known by the smoothness of the sheaths of the leaves, those of the asper 

 being hau-y, and infallibly by the two brown auricles at the base of the lamina. 



37. Sheep's Fescite-grass — {Festuca ovina.) 

 Heaths, moors, and hilly pastures, generally where diy and open, 



common. Fl. June, July. 



E. B. ix. 585. 



When it grows in low, moist meadows, as very frequently happens, this plant is 

 larger and more luxuriant, and the slender, hair like, densely-tufted leaves of the 

 hill-side are exchanged for nearly flat ones, at least upon the stem. Under this 

 asi^ect it is often distinguished as a species; and called the hard fescue, or 

 Festuca duriuscula (E. B. vii. 470). 



In gardens there is sometimes cultivated a large and very elegant and curious 

 y&riety oi the Festuca ovina, in which instead of panicles of flowers, there are 

 dense clusters of young plants, the weight of which bows the stem archways down 

 to the ground, where they take root, and form a miniature banyan-tree. This 

 plant was formerly esteemed a species, and called Festuca vivipara. 



38. Meadow Fescue — [Festuca pratensis.) 

 Moist meadows and pastures, common everywhere. Fl. June, Jxily. 



Curtis, ii. 371 ; E. B. xxiii. 1592; Baxter, v. 324. 



Like tlio Bromus mollis, an exceedingly variable grass. In the normal condition 

 the panicle is nearly erect, and branched, but rather close; this is iho form com- 

 monly found in hay-fields. When growing on the banks of rivers and in other 

 wet places, it becomes taller and often reed-like, and has a larger and more 



