Ill] VEGETATIVE CHARACTERS 41 



Melica nutans, L. (Mountain Melick). Ligule longer, 



and without the awl-shaped peg. Only in iScotland and 



W. of England. 



Both are sliade grasses of no agricultural value. 

 M. unifiora., with its quadrangular shoots and anti-hgular peg, 

 cannot be confounded with any other grass. 



(2) Sections of sheathed leaves more or less acutely two- 

 edged, owing to the keels of the compressed equitant 

 leaves. 



(i) Shoots broad and fan-like, much compressed, with old 

 brown leaf-sheaths below, sometimes burst by the 

 intra-vaginal branches: leaf ridgeless, with prominent 

 keel. No underground stolons. 



Dactylis glomerata, L. (Cock's-foot). An early and 

 quiclv -growing pasture-grass, which forms much aftermath. 

 Grows on all soils. Often coarse. Coarse tussocks, and 

 harsh, with broad thick succulent bluish-green leaves. 



Section of sheathed leaves acutely naviculate. Promi- 

 nent obtuse ligule, torn above. Lamina long, rough, acute, 

 with white lines if held up, and serrulate edges. No 

 flanking lines \ No stolons (Fig. 6). 



There is a cultivated variety of Dactylis with broad opaque white 

 sti'ipes down the leaves : these are totally different from the trans- 

 lucent white stripes seen on holding the wild form, or A ira ccespitosa, 

 up to the light. Another cultivated "ribbon-grass" — Digraphis — 

 has round shoots, split sheaths, and a ditterent habit, and the same 

 ai)plies to its wild form. 



Probably the only serious chances of confusion with Dactylis are 

 between it and Poa pratensis, which also has flattened shoots and 

 closed sheath ; but in the latter the section of the shoot is elliptical 

 — not navicidate, — the keel is far less prominent, and the ligule 



^ The pale flanking lines seen in many grasses on each side of the 

 mid-lib are the series of motor-cells referred to on p. 25. 



