HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOB U R N EN SIS. VO 



FESTUCA duriuscula. Hard Fescue. 



Specific character : Panicle unilateral, spreading ; florets 

 longer than their awns ; stem round, upper leaves flat, 

 root fibrous. Fig. 1. Calyx, with unequal valves. 

 2. Floret, or corolla and anthers. 3. Germen, or rudi- 

 ment of the future seed, and the feathered cylindrical 

 stigmas. 



Obs. — Sir James Edward Smith, in his English Botany, 

 observes, ** that in this genus it is hard to say what 

 may, or what may not be a species ;" and, with his 

 usual force and clearness, he reduces the festuca glauca, 

 festuca glabra, festuca Cambrica, festuca duriuscula^ and 

 festuca rubra, of Hudson, Lightfoot, Withering, Winch, 

 and Stillingfleet, &c. into one species. All these 

 grasses vary much from change of soil and situation ; 

 the flowers are particularly apt to vary in number, as 

 well as in the length of their awns : there is one cha- 

 racter, however, which I have never found to change 

 under any variety of culture, which is the creeping- 

 root; and this is also an agricultural character of dis- 

 tinction which is never to be lost sight of, as it always 

 produces a specific effect upon the soil, very distinct in- 

 deed from that of the fibrous-rooted kinds. The botani- 

 cal characters given by the learned, being, therefore, 

 insufficient to distinguish these grasses (which I have 

 no doubt will be equally so with many of the present 

 specific distinctions of plants, when discoveries have 

 been sufficiently extended over every country), I will 

 here consider them of two distinct species — the creep- 

 ing-rooted, and the fibrous-rooted : noting their varieties 

 from other parts of the plant. This will be sufficient 

 for the purposes of the agriculturist ; or, at least, to 

 practical men the discriminating characters will be 



dow hay, from the neighbourhood of Hendon. The crop is usually 

 cut early in June, and consists chiefly of the cynosurus crlstatus ; 

 hence this species is called, par excellence, the Hendon bent. — 

 Editor. 



