226 



half as long as the spikelet, 5-nerved, upper as long as the 

 spikelet, 5-nerved. Lower floret male ; valve resembling the 

 upper glume, palea almost as long as the valve. Upper floret 

 hermaphrodite, 1*5 mm. long, sub-obtuse, valve and palea 

 greenish-brown, shining, the valve faintly 5-nerved. 



Italian Somaliland : near Obbia, in sand, Appleton. 



Hints for the Collection op Grasses. 



The following lines are intended for the traveller or resident 

 who, without being a profsssional botanist, wishes to contri- 

 bute to the botanical exploration of the country he travels or 

 lives in. In a general way the conditions for collecting grasses 

 are the same as for collecting other flowering plants, except that 

 the merely technical part of the work is much simpler than 

 in most other families ; there are, however, certain points which 



will have to be considered to make the collection as useful as 

 possible. 



Two principal objects offer themselves to the collector ; firstly, 

 to gather as many different species as possible with a view, as it 

 were, to a contribution towards a census of the flora of the district 



? a «w e K P * g; u and .' Becondl y» to collect information which 

 S.^^ * otherwise than in the field, that is, information 

 regarding distribution, share in the composition of the vegetation 



SS^ B ?f e ? Ml 1 or social occurrence, association with other 

 JimnK™ fT °? 1Ca l P eculi;il 'ities (such as duration, period of 

 Cf ni f' flo f wen ?ft fating, and resting, seed dispersal), depen- 

 1*1 T Xt6 ? al x conditi ons (soil, altitude, water-supply, light, 



of the S? V- e) ' .^ th V laC0 the y occu Py in th P e P economy' 

 oL^in^n \ T°u m % a . nd of man especially (usefulness or 

 obvioTr W } * t J 30 * 11 objects are intimately connected. It is 

 i° £" th 1 en i no ^tematic knowledge of the char- 

 be ™ -hi J l d Under /he second head is possible without our 



S „ r eCOar .° b6erratioM wit £ the names of the 

 loriLtiZ ln ^ ormatlon o f that kind, particularly if coming from 

 therefor. \Z ° b f T Wh ° is not a Professional botanist, will 

 compete tn nT, G ?k be a ° COin P anied by specimens sufficiently 

 Sen n>Pnf T th fn termination by the specialist. In so far 

 the retirements will be the same as in the case of mere specimen 



eolWtnra Q JrVn ^A* 8 been the aim of most of the earlier 

 taSSM £°J5 !! fi ! S , man 7 * f the *** This implies no 



collecting:. 



shonhl J 1 k I alue 0f their w °rk. In fact without it we 



SoSwiml T- ^ 0tany ; but ifc does not exhaust botany or the 

 possibilities which »rp wt^in +i„. u .<.,-, • 7 i __: a 



collector. A complete set 

 growing in a given area 



trained 



, —uiw uiiuiau Somaliland, would 



wpTlth fZ. £ *[ achievement. In itself it would be a mine of 

 S|ii» taxonomist, morpholo^ist and plant geographer, but 

 in thJ Lt Z d , he dead "Serial. And so closely interwoven, 



-* t h ^^ * *<« doc ^ e ? 



them would 



havp tn i. om „- , , iae P lant s, that many of them wouiu 



of fiVhi r^ m ™ solve <l or be misinterpreted without the addition 

 or nem observation. Science is Hlnwivo,i;,, ti n „ i* a »w i« thp.se 



