218 FLOWERS OF THE SEA-COAST 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



337- Cynosurus echinatus, L. Stem erect, flowers in dense raceme, 

 the awns as long as the palea, with bristly bracts. 



Seaside Manna Grass (Glyceria maritima, Mert. et Koch) 



(See illustration on p. 211.) 



In common with other maritime plants our only knowledge of this 

 grass is obtained from its present-day distribution in the N. Temperate 

 Zone in Europe, N. Africa, Siberia, and N. America. It is found 

 around the whole of the British coasts, except in Pembroke, Cardigan, 

 Merioneth, Denbigh, Lines, as far north as the Shetlands. It is also 

 a native of Ireland and the Channel Islands. 



The seaside form of Manna Grass is a very universally dispersed 

 maritime species, which is typically a salt-lover, and is found almost 

 exclusively on coasts that are muddy or sandy, occurring in the same 

 stations as G. distant and various other grasses. 



The stem is round and smooth, the root fibrous, creeping, and with 

 long trailing shoots, rooting and leafy. The leaves are acute, with a 

 strong ridge, the margin rolled inwards, with smooth sheaths, and a 

 long blunt ligule. 



The flowers are borne on a one-sided panicle, which is branched 

 and narrowed, with solitary or the lower 2-3 short branches, horizontal, 

 sometimes turned down, with a nearly round rachis. The spikelets are 

 5-flowered and blunt, linear, 5-nerved, the empty glumes subacute. 

 The lower palea is blunt apiculate, rolled inwards. 



The plant is about i ft. high. It flowers in July. Seaside Manna 

 Grass is perennial, increasing by means of its stolons. 



The flowers are pollinated by the wind, and the stigmas mature 

 first, ensuring cross-pollination. The stamens are 3, the styles are 

 short or wanting, and the stigmas feathery, the spikelets being 5, in a 

 narrowed panicle. 



The fruit, covered by the glume, is light, and wind-borne. 



This Manna Grass is a salt-lover, and grows in a saline soil. It is 

 also a sand plant, and addicted to a sand soil or a dirty loam. A moth, 

 Epichnopteryx reticella, is found to infest it. 



Glyceria, R. Brown, is from the Greek glukeros, sweet, in allusion 

 to the sweet grains, and the second Latin name refers to the habitat 

 (maritime). 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



339. Glyceria maritima, Mert. et Koch. Root creeping, fibrous, 



