HORTUS GRAMINEUS VVOBURNENSIS. 247 



and nutritive properties, but neither appear to have merits 

 sufficient to recommend it for cultivation. 



The knee-jointed, or pendulous lynie- grass, flowers in the 

 second week of July. The sea lyme-grass flowers about a 

 week later. The seed is perfected in about three weeks after 

 the time of flowering. 



ARUNDO arenaria. Sea-reed, Marram, Starr, or Bent. 



Specific character : Calyx single-flowered, longer than the 

 corolla ; panicle spiked ; flowers erect, slightly awned, 

 leaves involute, sharp-pointed. — Fig. 1. Calyx. 2. Floret. 

 3. Germen, styles, and nectary, magnified. 



Experiments. — At the time of flowering, the produce from 

 a siliceous sandy soil is 10,890 lbs. per acre. 



The nutritive matter of this grass affords a large portion of 

 saccharine matter when compared with the produce, in this 

 respect, of other grasses : the elymus arenariiis, however, 

 affords about one-third more sugar than the present plant. 

 The quantity of nutritive matter afforded by the elymus 

 arenarius is superior to that afforded by the arundo arenaria, 

 in the proportion of 4 to 5. 



The above details of produce shew that the artindo 

 arenaria is unworthy of cultivation as food for cattle, out of 

 the influence of the salt spray. But the habit of the plant 

 in its natural place of growth, the loose sands of the sea- 

 coast, is of great utility, particularly when combined with 

 the elymus arenarius ( as was before observed when speaking 

 of that species), in binding the sands of the sea-shore, and 

 thereby raising a natural barrier, the most lasting, against 

 the encroachments of the ocean upon the land. So far back 

 as the reign of Williacn III, the important value of the 

 elymus arenarius and arundo arenaria was so well appreciated 

 as to induce the Scottish Parliament of that period to pass an 

 act for their preservation on the sea-coasts of Scotland. And 

 these provisions were, by the British Parliament, in the reign 

 of George II, followed up by further enactments, extending 

 the operation of the Scottish law to the coasts of England, 



