PHLEUM BOEHMERI. 33 



PHLEUM BOEHMERL 



SCHRADER. KOCH. SMITH. KUNTH. HOOKER. LlNDLEY. WITHERING. 



BABINGTON. PARNELL. 



PLATE X. A. 



Phalaris phhoides, LINN^US. WILLDENOW. SMITH. 



" " OEDER. HOST. EHRHART. 



" " SINCLAIR. 



Chilochoa boehmeri, BEAUVOIS. 



The Purple-stalked Cat' s-tail Grass. 

 Phleum Reed Mace. Boehmeri After Boehmer. 



A RARE British Grass, of no agricultural use; almost confined to 

 ./~\ chalky or dry sandy fields in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, in the 

 latter county near Narburgh. It has not been discovered either in 

 Scotland or Ireland. 



On the continent it is included in the flora of Russia, Switzerland, 

 Italy, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. 



Root fibrous and perennial. Stem upright, smooth, simple, slender, 

 striated; upper portion purple and shining, having four or five leaves, 

 with smooth rather tumid striated sheaths, the uppermost one much 

 longer than its leaf, and having a broad obtuse ligule, which entirely 

 encloses the stem, mostly four-jointed, the joints being all below the 

 centre. Leaves rough on both sides and along the edges, flat, linear- 

 lanceolate in form, except those near the base, which are narrower. 

 Inflorescence compact, dense, panicled, cylindrical. Spikelets diminutive, 

 very numerous, situated all round the panicle, consisting of two equal- 

 sized glumes and one floret; glumes linear, the edges being white and 

 membranous; apex oblique; floret awnless, and only three fourths of 

 the length of the glumes, consisting of two equal-sized paleae, the 

 exterior one being five-ribbed and roughish, the inner one membranous. 



