1107 



gathered at intervals nearly the whole length of the spit or tongue of 

 low, sandy ground that almost closes the entrance to Brading Har- 

 bour, converting it at high water into a salt-lake. The Poa prefers 

 the turf, where the herbage is thin, to the bare, loose and shifting soil 

 of the sand-hills, growing on the former in a scattered manner, a few 

 plants here and there, at considerable distances apart. It will pro- 

 bably be detected on other parts of the Hampshire coast, and pos- 

 sibly in the sandy tracts of the interior, but I searched for it 

 unsuccessfully along the south shore of Portsea and the opposite 

 part of Hayling Island in May last, with great expectation of finding 

 it after its discovery at St. Helen's, and from having only a week be- 

 fore gathered it in plenty at Little Hampton, Sussex, with Mr. Borrer, 

 who first noticed it there. My Sussex specimens are much larger 

 and finer than those from the Isle of Wight, and far more abundant, 

 which may account in some degree for my having overlooked the spe- 

 cies in the latter station, which I was in the habit of visiting very 

 often, at all times of the year ; but Poa bulbosa is at best an incon- 

 spicuous grass, with no strongly marked character to arrest the atten- 

 tion of one unacquainted with its appearance when growing, as was 

 the case with myself. Mr. Borrer remarks that this Poa resembles 

 Kohleria (Aira) cristata in its panicle, only much shorter and smaller ; 

 to myself, when in full flower, and the branches of the panicle spread- 

 ing, it recals Poa compressa, or a contracted form of P. pratensis, fre- 

 quent on wall-tops and dry situations (the var. subccerulea, Sm. ?) 

 The extremely short, narrow, rough-edged leaves, and copious 

 bulbous offsets from the root, its much earlier flowering time, and 

 other well-marked distinctions, will prevent its being confounded with 

 the remaining species belonging to the section with mostly webbed 

 florets, between which there is a strong and sometimes bewildering 

 resemblance. I cannot find any figure of this grass conveying a cor- 

 rect idea of its aspect, excepting that old one of Vailliant, ' Botanicon 

 Paris.' t. 17, fig. 8, which is very good; those of ' English Botany,' 

 Knapp and Parnell are all extremely defective.* 



Poa annua. In meadows, pastures, streets, court-yards, and under 

 walls ; the commonest of grasses. 



Poa nemoralis. In shady places, woods, thickets, groves, and on 

 hedge-banks, but rarely. Not yet observed in the Isle of Wight. On 

 shady hedge-banks at the south end of Sidmonton Common, near 



* A really well executed work, I mean as to illustrations of the Gramina of Bri- 

 tain, is yet a desideratum to the botany of our country. 



