1084 



be wished, as far as the only portion of the plant represented is 

 concerned. 



Polyjiogon littoralis. In brackish or salt-water swamps, pools and 

 ditches ; very rare. Most profusely, with the last, in a swampy pool 

 in the meadow near Porchester, before described, October, 1848. In 

 Portsea Island, Mr. L. H. Jacob ! A grass with very much the habit 

 and appearance of Agrostis alba, but far larger and handsomer, yet 

 liable, when out of flower, to be mistaken for an awned variety of that 

 species, as indeed happened to myself, I having sent a specimen as 

 such to Mr. H. C. Watson, with a query, in the autumn of 1848, to 

 which he replied, " Is not your plant rather P. littoralis ?" which, in- 

 deed, it was. In the Porchester station it grows associated with P. 

 monspeliensis (its companion in most of its other known localities), 

 Agrostis alba (the procumbent form),-Scirpus maritimus and other salt- 

 marsh plants, but exceeds them all in quantity, absolutely filling up 

 the pool with its decumbent stems, so as to enable one to walk in 

 amongst it, without sinking in the muddy water more than ankle deep. 

 Here again, as with P. monspeliensis, the species appears greatly to 

 exceed the usual size it attains in the few remaining English habitats. 

 Many of the culms I measured were six feet in length, and the pa- 

 nicles eight and nine inches quite commonly. These last, especially 

 in their contracted state before and after flowering, bear a certain re- 

 semblance to those of Calamagrostisepigejos, being, like them, lobed, 

 and either purple or pale green, or a mixture of both, but much supe- 

 rior in elegance. 



This very rare and beautiful grass was formerly supposed to be re- 

 stricted to England, and even there is confined to a few spots on the 

 south and east coasts, no other part of Britain being hitherto known 

 to possess it. It is now ascertained to inhabit other parts of Europe, 

 as in the island of Norderney, on the coast of Hanover, and according 

 to Lloyd (' Flore de la Loire inferieure,' p. 297), on that of Brittany, 

 but rarely. It is not likely, however, to be so circumscribed as it ap- 

 pears, yet must it be very local in its general distribution, both in this 

 country and on the continent. I have not seen even a tolerable figure 

 of this grass in any British or foreign work. 



W. A. Beomfield. 

 Eastmount, Ryde, Isle of Wight. 



(To be continued). 



