PHLEUM ARENARIUM. 35 



PHLEUM ARENARIUM. 



LINN.EUS. SMITH. HOOKER. LINDLEY. KOCH. GREVILLE. PARNELL 

 SCHRADER. OEDER. EHRHART. 



PLATE X. B. 

 Phalaris arenaria, KNAPP. HUDSON. WILLDENOW. 



The Sea Cat's- tail Grass. 

 Phleum Reed Mace. Arenarium Sea-shore. 



M^HE Pkleum arenarium is almost exclusively a sea-side Grass, 

 -L growing in loose sand. It is to be met with on the coasts of 

 Devonshire, Somersetshire, Sussex, Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cheshire, 

 Durham, and Northumberland. Also in Denbigh and Fifeshire ; indeed 

 it is by no means uncommon in Scotland, although local in Ireland. 

 On the continent it is met with in various places in southern Europe. 

 Inland it is recorded as growing on Swaffham and Newmarket Heaths. 



The leaves being harsh it is not an agricultural Grass. 



Root annual, consisting of numerous long simple fibres. Stem cir- 

 cular, smooth, and mostly having a purple tinge on the upper portion; 

 joints naked. The stem bears four or five leaves, whose sheaths are 

 slightly tumid, smooth, and striated, the uppermost sheath being above 

 double the length of its leaf. Leaves rough both above and below, 

 brief and broad. Inflorescence simple panicled, the panicle being 

 obovate-cylindrical in form, and upright in habit. Spikelets oval in 

 shape, and numerous, consisting of one floret of one third the length 

 of the calyx, and awnless. Calyx composed of a couple of equal-sized 

 membranous glumes, which are lanceolate in form. Upper portion of 

 the keel and inner edges fringed. Floret consisting of two equal-sized 

 membranous paleaD, notched at the apex, the outer palese five-ribbed, 

 keel hirsute. The length of this Grass varies considerably, according 

 to the support it is enabled to procure from the sandy ground. 



