1112 



continent, and perhaps with us, for the following. Panicle much 

 less branched or decompounded than in the next species, the spike- 

 lets consequently fewer and distant ; culms leafless at the top ; anthers 

 exserted. 



Briza minor. In corn-fields and other cultivated ground, also on 

 thin pasture-land by road-sides, but much seldomer in the latter than 

 the former situations ; very rare. In the two last fields, one on each 

 side the road, from Quarr Abbey to Fishouses, abundant in certain 

 years, whenever the land is cropped with corn, particularly wheat, at 

 other times usually scarce. In 1836, when I first observed it, the 

 quantity was very moderate, but the year following it was abundant 

 (I think amongst oats), and in 1839 came up in profusion, both 

 amongst wheat and vetches. In 1840 scarcely a specimen could be 

 found, but in 1842 it was again plentiful, also in 1843, in the right 

 hand field (from Quarr), then in lay. In 1838, when the land was 

 laid down with clover, the plant almost totally disappeared. Again 

 abundant in 1845, and since then up to the present year (1850) found 

 when looked for in plenty occasionally, and if not to be seen in the 

 fields it may almost always be gathered on their grassy margins, al- 

 though not so abundantly. The Briza is certainly permanent in this, 

 its only known Isle-of- Wight station, and no casual introduction with 

 corn or grass-seeds, as is sufficiently proved by its invariable abun- 

 dance when certain crops come in rotation. Abundant in corn-fields 

 at Marchwood, near the head of the Southampton Water, on the op- 

 posite side to the town, Mr. Borrer !!! I gathered it there in plenty 

 in 1836, and again this summer (1850), and find it scattered over 

 most parts of that vicinity, not only as a weed, in cultivated fields of 

 all kinds, but on the short, thin turf or pasture by the road- sides, 

 along with such semi-pascual and pratal species as Anthemis Cotula, 

 Polygonum aviculare, Pulicaria vulgaris, &c, but much more spa- 

 ringly than on the tillage-lands,* nor is it, with us at least, a true 

 meadow or pasture-grass, like B. media. Potato-fields at Boscombe, 

 near Bournemouth, between Christchurch and Poole, the Hon. C. A. 

 Harris, ex. J. Curtis in litt. and Brit. Entom. viii. t. et. fol. 353 (from 

 a Hants specimen). No doubt it occurs in other parts of Hants, but 

 only probably in the south-west and along the coast. The Isle of 

 Wight is, I believe, the most easterly station in England for Briza 

 minor, than which few species are more characteristic of the occidental 



* At Poole, in Dorsetshire, Dr. Salter finds Briza minor springing commonly from 

 the interstices of the pavement in the less frequented streets of the town. 



