166 GRASSES OF BRITAIN. 



Cynodon Dactylon. 



Creeping Finger- Grass. 



Plate LXXII. 



Specific Characters. — Glumes acute, nearly equal. 



Description. — Root perennial, creeping, producing many stems 

 from three to six inches in length. Stems smooth, hollow, prostrate 

 at the base, bearing four or five leaves, with smooth, striated sheaths ; 

 the upper sheath much longer than its leaf, crowned with a tuft of 

 hairs in place of a ligule. Joints near the base, covered by the sheaths. 

 Leaves flat or folded, acute, rigid, hairy, rough at the edges, the up- 

 per leaf situated close under the panicle. Infiorescence digitate, li- 

 near, purplish, bearing about eleven nearly sessile spikelets, arranged 

 singly at equal distances on one side only of the rachis ; the rachis 

 rough, the margins closely toothed. Spikelets laterally compressed, 

 composed of two glumes and one floret, with an occasional rudiment 

 of a second. Glumes acute, nearly equal, the lower rather the smaller, 

 without lateral ribs, toothed on the upper half of the keel. Floret 

 rather longer than the glumes, of two palese, the outer palea the 

 larger without lateral ribs, the dorsal rib and lower half of the mar- 

 gins hairy ; the inner palea about equal in length to the outer and 

 rough at the margins. Stamens three. Pistils two. Stigmas fea- 

 thery. Styles distinct, rather long. 



Obs. — Cynodon Dactylon is distinguished from Digitaria in the 

 spikelets being laterally compressed, and arising from the rachis 

 singly (see Fig. 1.) Ligule wanting, — while in Digitaria the spikelets 

 are dorsally compressed, and arise from the rachis in pairs or threes, 

 and the ligule is very distinct. 



This grass grows abundantly on the sandy shores in the south-west 



Cymdon Dactylon, Pers., Koch, Kunth, Smith, Hooker, Bab., Lintl. Panicum Dactylon, 

 Linn., Eng. Bot., Knapp. 



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