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eye is liable to be baulked and partially disabled from discriminating 

 between them at all times. The culms of the Leersia are in general 

 more slender than those of the reed, the joints further apart, and the 

 sheaths clothing the internodes slightly swollen or inflated into a 

 somewhat spindle-like form, particularly the uppermost sheath, which 

 appears so from containing within its convolutions the embryo or ma- 

 ture panicle, according to the time of year. By slitting or tearing 

 the sheath open, the included florets of an oblong figure, with 

 strongly ciliated margins, together with the extreme asperity of the 

 leaves and lower joints of the culm (in which it differs from every 

 other British grass), will at any season reveal the true nature of the 

 specimen under examination. But as the species may be growing in 

 situations where it cannot be tested by handling, it becomes of im- 

 portance to be able to distinguish it at some distance, from the aqua- 

 tic herbage by which it is liable to be veiled from any but an ex- 

 perienced eye. The readiest mark in this case is the sudden or abrupt 

 termination of the culm in a short, spreading leaf at the top of the 

 slightly ventricose and fusiform sheath, looking as though the upper 

 part of the plant had been plucked or broken off from the lower, and 

 by this it may be distinguished from a distance when the panicle is 

 yet undeveloped, or too slightly exserted to arrest attention. The 

 tender shoots of the reed with which the Cutgrass is so apt to be con- 

 founded, are terminated by an acutely-pointed and convoluted leaf, 

 enclosing other leaves destined to surmount it in their turn, till the 

 growth of the shoot is completed and eventuates in the production of 

 the flower-stalk and panicle ; or if destined to remain barren, the shoot 

 ends indeed in an expanded leaf, but that leaf is upright, not spread- 

 ing, and, besides, long ere its growth ceases, the shoot has lost much 

 of the resemblance it bore to the Leersia in its younger state, and is 

 not likely to occasion a mistake between them. True it is, that the 

 Cutgrass will itself present such a convoluted terminal leaf in its ear- 

 lier growing state, till the axis has ceased to elongate, and hence 

 there is still a chance of its being overlooked for a nascent reed, un- 

 less its identity can be put to the proof by drawing it through the 

 hand, when the great asperity of the Leersia betrays it in an instant. 

 Some attention is, however, necessary even here, for the plant varies 

 a good deal in the degree of roughness ; certain specimens gathered 

 by me at Amberley were inconsiderably scabrous, whilst the majority, 

 like the Hampshire ones, were as remarkable for their extreme aspe- 

 rity, which even makes some precaution requisite to avoid cutting the 

 hand, an accident that is said to befal the women employed in weeding 



