1102 



subsequently in Switzerland and different districts of south Germany, 

 and finally in various other and more northerly parts of that country, 

 as Saxony, Hesse, &c. It is now ascertained to inhabit most parts of 

 continental Europe south of the Baltic from Belgium, eastward to Po- 

 land and Russia, and northward as far as Holstein (Fl. Dan. x. fasc. 

 30, p. I, t. 1744). The occurrence in Britain of plants of so austral 

 a type as Leersia and Isnardia, should be a hint to some of us not to 

 be so ready to doubt the indigenous origin of every new and many an 

 old discovery, for I suppose few will impugn the aboriginality of these 

 two species, since neither are ever cultivated for their beauty or other 

 qualities. So long, however, as such plants as Cyperus fuscus and 

 Viola odorata are objects of expressed suspicion, and the asterisk is 

 still appended to even such boreal productions as Aquilegia vulgaris 

 and Humulus Lupulus, there is no security for any British vegetable 

 being permitted to flourish with its claims to nativity unimpeached. 

 The figure of Leersia oryzoides in ' Flora Danica' (ut supra), and that 

 of Host, Gram. Aust. i. t. 35, are admirable full-length portraits of that 

 grass as it usually exhibits itself in this country. Schreber's figure 

 (Beschreibung der Grasen) is also very accurate, and that author no- 

 tices a peculiarity in the structure of our Leersia which seems to have 

 escaped the observation of all previous and subsequent describers of 

 the species, and which I find very correctly stated in his excellent 

 and detailed account. At the origin of each branch of the culm, or in 

 the axil of the bifurcation between the branch and main stem, will be 

 found a long, narrow, pellucid and membranous appendage, sometimes 

 of a brownish colour, applied by its thin margins to the branch, which 

 margins form a fold or reduplication, that is garnished with long, white, 

 silky, rather distant or scattered hairs, directed downwards according 

 to Schreber (herunterwarts stehenden), but spreading in our Hamp- 

 shire specimens. 



Obs. — Sesleria caerulea, which occurs on the chalky hills and banks 

 of Normandy, may well be supposed able to maintain itself on the 

 same formation in the south of England ; this probability of its occur- 

 rence should therefore be kept in mind by botanists residing in the 

 Channel districts. 



Aira ccespitosa. In moist, shady places, woods, thickets, groves, 

 &c. ; plentiful in the Isle of Wight and throughout the county. In 

 Quarr Copse, Apley Wood, and elsewhere about Ryde. Abundant in 

 woods at Yarmouth, &c, and in most parts of mainland Hants. 



Aira Jlexuosa. In dry, heathy, hilly pastures ; decidedly very 

 local in the Isle of Wight, but probably not rare in the county. On 



