266 Dr r. Buchanan White on Poa palustris, L. 



would it be cultivated for its beauty. It is widely, but not 

 universally, distributed in Europe — both north and south 

 and east and west- — and occurs also in North America. On 

 the banks of the Tay it grows mixed with the local, but 

 undoubtedly wild, Carex aquatilis. Looking, therefore, to all 

 probabilities, we came to the conclusion that the species was 

 indigenous. 



Corroboration of this view was obtained soon afterwards 

 by the discovery of another station. This was in a wild 

 marsh near Crieff, sixteen miles distant, and with no 

 possibility of transmission by water of seeds from one place 

 to the other. 



It seems not improbable that Poa palustris may be 

 detected in other places. It is by no means unlike its 

 allies, and might readily be passed over. Most of all it 

 resembles P. nemoralis — with which it has been confounded 

 — but the presence of a conspicuous ligule is a ready mark 

 of distinction. It is more slender than either P. pratcnsis 

 or P. trivialis, while the absence of stolons, as well as 

 other characters, separates it from the former, and the 

 almost nerveless spikelets from the latter. 



Till somewhat recently the grass has been known as Poa 

 serotina, Ehrh., the Linnean name P. palustris being sup- 

 posed to be at least doubtful, if indeed it did not really 

 belong — as Smith affirmed — to Lcersia oryzoides. Nyman 

 {Conspcdits), however, catalogues the plant as P. palustris 

 (L.), Eth., and says that it seems to be the same as the 

 palustris of the Systema, 10th ed., and of Species Plantarum, 

 2nd ed. 



the place where it grows in the marsh heside the Tay showed that it was not 

 there, at any rate ; and thongh it now occurs on the raised artificial bank of 

 the river, its presence there is due to the fact that the bank had been mended 

 with earth taken from the marsh. In cultivation in my garden the grass has 

 become much more luxuriant. The wild specimens from near Criett' are much 

 more slender than the Tay plant, and retain this characteristic under cultiva- 

 tion. Tliis, I think, rather favours the view that Poa palustris is indigenous 

 in Perthshire.— F. B. W. 



