92 AGROSTIS. [class III. ORDER II. 



seen, and occasionally absent, all which varieties may sometimes be 

 seen in the same plant. Anthers yellow. Seed minnte. Stigmas 

 feathery. 



Habitat. — Heaths, moors, and waste places frequent. 



Perennial ; flowering in June and July. 



This is an extremely sportive species, and from the absence of one 

 of the valves of the glumella, (which from the above authorities, to 

 which we may add that of Greville, in Flora Edinensis,p. 16) it appears 

 by no means a constant character ; and iipon the value of this 

 character, Smith has remarked, that " such a partial deficiency could 

 hardly afford a specific, much less a generic, distinction." From this 

 circumstance, however, Schrader has constructed his genus Trichodium, 

 and it is adopted by Liudley. This grass abounds in hilly and poor 

 pastures ; the leaves are more or less setaceous, depending uj)on 

 the situation of their growth being dry or otherwise : in dry situations 

 the root leaves are remarkably so, but become thick and fleshy at 

 the base ; by this provision there is formed, as it were, a reservoir 

 of nutriment, and the plants are enabled to sustain themselves 

 during long continued droughts, which often prevail in elevated 

 situations. It is of no agricultural utility, affording but little nutri- 

 ment, and one which the farmer may consider as a weed, and an 

 indication that his land is greatly capable of improvement by suitable 

 tillage. 



2. A. seta'cea, Cnviis, (Fig. 116.) hristle-leaved Bent-grass. Panicle 

 erect, its branches short and close ; glumes lanceolate, slightly 

 unequal, keel rough ; glumelles unequal, outer valve with a long 

 jointed and twisted awn from near the base, inner minute; radical 

 leaves setaceous. 



English Botany, t. 1168. — English Flora, vol. i. p. 91. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 37.— Tricho'dium seta'ceum, Ra3m. and Sch. 

 — Liudley, Synopsis, p. 303. 



Root with strong downy fibres. Stems from six to twelve inches 

 high, nearly erect, slender, smooth or slightly rough, mostly bearing 

 two short leaves. Leaves, a pale glaucous green, roughish or downy; 

 the radical ones are erect, almost round, bristle shaped, (setaceous) 

 from the rolling in of the edges, those of the stem broader, much 

 shorter and having long smooth sheaths. Ligula thin lanceolate, mostly 

 torn. Inflorescence an erect, short branched panicle, close, except 

 ■when in flower it is spreading. Glumes lanceolate, pale purplish 

 tapering at the extremity, rough on the keel and edges, and slightly 

 downy all over, outer vahe somewhat longer than the inner. Glumelles 

 very unequal, white thin and membranous, the outer one lanceolate 

 obtuse, having four green nerves, the two lateral ones of which ter- 

 minate in projecting points, the rough jointed and twisted uicn arises 

 from the base of the valve, and is about twice as long; the inner valve 



