1095 



the British species of this usually beautiful family of plants. Neither 

 does it recommend itself to notice by any known uses like the follow- 

 ing, unless, as in that, by its creeping and fibrous roots serving to con- 

 solidate the soft, fluctuating soil on which it grows, and affording a 

 safe, if not dry, footing over the dreary waste of muddy salt-marsh. 

 I am not aware that any animal will touch this grass, and the straw is 

 much too short either for litter or thatching. Although found spa- 

 ringly in Devonshire (ex herb. Smith), it appears to be everywhere 

 scarce to the westward of the Isle of Wight, but extends southward 

 into Africa, as far at least as Mogador, from whence I have seen spe- 

 cimens. The distinct articulation of the leaves, with their sheaths, 

 by a slightly raised fillet or ring-like and cartilaginous joint, at which 

 a separation can be easily effected at any time, will always distinguish 

 this species from stunted or nascent specimens of the following, which 

 sometimes resembles it not a little. 



■fSpartina alterniflora. In precisely similar situations with the 

 foregoing species, but far rarer, and indeed only known in Britain on 

 the subjoined station, where I feel pretty well assured it must have 

 been introduced, although now perfectly naturalized. Profusely on 

 mud-flats of the Itchen River, at Southampton, 1836. (For a full ac- 

 count of the characters, habit and uses of this species, see Hooker's 

 ' Companion to the Botanical Magazine,' ii. p. 254.) Although un- 

 able to ascertain with any precision the date of its introduction to this 

 country, I cannot persuade myself that this fine grass is aboriginal 

 with us in England, a conclusion I should be the more happy to ar- 

 rive at, since I was myself its discoverer at Southampton, and bota- 

 nists, to whose opinion the greatest respect and deference is due, are 

 arrayed against me in its favour. My objections to receive it as a 

 strictly indigenous grass are, first, its limitation in Europe to a couple 

 of stations on the western coast, both sea-ports having constant com- 

 munication with America, over which continent it is very widely and 

 abundantly distributed, but is quite unknown in our hemisphere, ex- 

 cepting in the two localities just mentioned.* Secondly, the weight 

 of local testimony goes to prove that the Many-spiked Cord-grass was 

 unknown at Southampton within the memory of persons now living, 

 and although the evidence I have been able to collect be sufficiently 

 confused and contradictory to show that very little is known about 

 the origin of this grass with certainty, it is not so weak that we can 



* The other European station for S. alterniflora is in salt marshes by the Adour, at 

 Bayonne (Loisel. Fl. Gall. 2nd edit. i. p. 41). 



