186 GRASSES OF BRITAIN. 



POLYPOGON LITTORALIS. 



Perennial Beard- Grass. 

 Plate LXXXI. 



Specific Characters. — Awns of the glumes about equal in length 

 to their glumes. 



Description. — Root perennial, somewhat creeping. Stem erect, 

 round, smooth, hollow, from six to twelve inches high, bearing seven 

 or eight leaves, with smooth, striated sheaths ; the upper sheath much 

 longer than its leaf. Ligule of upper sheath prominent, acute, about 

 twice as long as broad. Joints smooth, the upper situated about the 

 centre of the stem, generally covered by the second sheath. Leaves 

 flat, acute, roughish on both surfaces. Inflorescence compound pa- 

 nicled ; the branches and rachis rough, with minute teeth. Spikelets 

 rather small, numerous, laterally compressed, composed of two glumes 

 and one floret. Glumes equal, linear, hairy, obtuse, strongly toothed 

 on the keels, without lateral ribs ; furnished with a long rough awn, 

 about as long as the glume, arising immediately beneath the summit. 

 Floret rather more than half the length of the glumes, of two paleae 

 of unequal lengths ; the outer palea the larger, without lateral ribs, 

 furnished with a slender awn about half as long again as the palea, 

 and arising from a little beneath the cloven summit ; the inner palea 

 shorter than the outer, thin and pellucid, with the margins entire. 

 Stamens three. Styles two, distinct. Stigmas feathery. Scales 

 two, lanceolate. 



Obs. — Polypogon littoralis is distinguished from Polypogon mons- 

 peliensis in the awns of the glumes being about equal in length to 

 their glumes ; and the awn of the floret nearly twice the length of the 

 floret ; — whereas in Polypogon monspeliensis the awns of the glumes 

 are more than twice the length of the glumes ; and the awn of the 

 floret is about one-third the length of the floret. 



This is one of our rarest British grasses, formerly considered to be 



Poh/pogon littoralis, Smith, Hooker, Lind., Koch., Kunth, Bab. Agroslis littoralis, 

 Eng. Bot., With., Knapp. 



