682 



As Leersia oryzoides is a grass of no easy detection in this country, 

 from the tendency the inflorescence has to remain concealed in the 

 sheaths of the leaves, and from the general aspect and habit of the 

 plant possessing but little by which to distinguish it at sight from 

 other marsh grasses, both which concurred in keeping it so long un- 

 known as a native production ; some notice of its habits and peculia- 

 rities may be useful in facilitating its discovery in other parts of the 

 kingdom,* by those whom, without such a guide, the best descrip- 

 tions, plates, and even dried specimens could hardly enable, until 

 habituated by practice, to recognize it in its native marshes. 



The localities affected by the Cutgrass are shallow ditches, drains 

 of water-meadows, and the reedy or grassy margins of rivers, brooks 

 and pools. f It seems to evince a partiality, both here and on the 

 continent, for mill-dams,t doubtless because the water is tranquil and 

 the supply constant; and in most of the English stations it grows as- 

 sociated with the common reed (Phragmites communis) , to the first 

 young and tender shoots from the suckers of which it so nearly assi- 

 milates in aspect, that a close examination is requisite to distinguish 

 them when intermixed, and by this resemblance even an experienced 



* It would be presumptuous to pretend assigning limits to the extension of the 

 Leersia westward or northward of its present new locality, but its continental distribu- 

 tion does not warrant our indulging a hope that it will be found to spread much fur- 

 ther than at present, at least in the former of these directions. The opinion put for- 

 ward by me in a former note on this subject (Phytol. iii. 368), that the Leersia and 

 Isnardia will be found coextensive in their distribution over England, appears to be 

 receiving confirmation. To hazard a conjecture purely theoretical, the occurrence of 

 both these plants may be predicted in Mr. Watson's districts of the Channel and 

 Thames, with very possibly an extension of the boundary in a north-easterly direction 

 into that of Ouse — this last being nearly in the polar limits of the parallel of the two 

 species on the continent of Europe. In general, however, plants of the eastern or 

 Germanic type of distribution fall short, in this country, of the latitude they attain on 

 the continent, and there is no ground for supposing an exception to the usual law in 

 the present instances. 



f In America it is extremely common in wet or damp places of all kinds, but in 

 England it would seem to be more perfectly aquatic, and to require to have its roots 

 at least immersed. The habit of the English plant is likewise more erect than the 

 American, in which the culms are usually very decumbent at base, and the growth 

 diffuse or straggling. 



% Some German writers consider the Leersia as introduced and only naturalized 

 in central Europe, — an idea much on a par with the innumerable fantasies of a like 

 kind entertained of our own plants. Thus Meyer, in his excellent work the ' Chloris 

 Hanoverana,' says of our grass in that kingdom : " An Gewassern selten und nur ver- 

 wildert ; urspriinglich aus Italien." In England, and no doubt in Hanover too, it 

 is certainly indigenous. 



