90 TRIANDRIA— DIGYNIA. Affrostis, 



&' 



2. A. canina. Brown Bent-grass. 



Awn incurved, from below the middle of the corolla ; inner 

 valve obsolete. Calyx ovate, coloured. Stems decum- 

 bent, with prostrate shoots. Stipula lanceolate. 



A. canina. Linn. Sp. PL 92. Wllld. v.l. 367. Fl. Br. 78. Engl. 

 Bot. V. 26. t. 1856. Knapp t.2]. Hook. Scot. 24. Leers 19. 

 t. A.f. 2. Hoffm. Germ, for 1 SOO. 34. t. 6. 



A. vinealis. With. 127. 



A. striata. Sincl. 151. 



Trichodium caninum. Schrad. Germ. v. 1. 198. 



Avena n. 1479. Hall. Hist. v. 2. 227. 



Grameh paniculatum supinum, ad ir.fima culmorum genicula fo- 

 liorum capillarium fasciculis donatum. Scheuchz. Agr. 141. t. 3. 

 /. 9, C. 



/3. Huds. 30, excluding the synonyms. 



AgTOstis tenuifolia. Curt. Brit. Gr. 42, without an awn. 



A. fascicularis. -S'mcL 155. 



In meadows and pastures, especially in damp boggy places, common. 



Perennial. June, July. 



Root creeping, with downy fibres, and many trailing leafy shoots. 

 Stems several, more or less decumbent, and taking root, at the 

 lower joints ; from 1 to 3 feet long, leafy, ascending, slender, 

 smooth. Leaves roughish on both sides, narrow, especially in 

 the radical tufts, where they are, as Professor Schrader remarks, 

 quite setaceous, and by the presence of such tufts this species is 

 readily distinguished from the awned varieties of A. vulgaris, 

 without adverting to the corolla. Sheaths striated, smooth, Sti- 

 pula lanceolate, elongated, finally torn ; in vulgaris this part is 

 extremely short. Panicle spreading when in flower, otherwise 

 collected into lobes or close tufts; the branches capillary, elastic, 

 angular, rough, brownish purple. Fl. erect, shining. Valves of 

 the calyx ovate, pointed, purple ; occasionally yellow, Sincl. 1 53. ; 

 the outer one largest, with a rough keel ; inner smooth. Cor. 

 membranous, white or greenish ; the larger valve ribbed, notched, 

 about the length of the calyx, or rather shorter, with a jointed 

 incurved awn, from below the middle of its keel, extending a 

 little way beyond the point ; smaller valve often entirely want- 

 ing, thovigh some flowers in every panicle usually have it, either 

 diminutive, as in Engl. Bot., or nearly equal to the awned valve, 

 as in a specimen before me. Leers, the most accurate of all ob- 

 servers in this tribe of plants, says this valve is very often want- 

 ing, but not always. Such a partial deficiency could hardly 

 afford a specific, much less a generic, distinction. The awn 

 varies in length, and is occasionally absent, as in var. /3, nothing 

 being more uncertain than the dorsal awns of grasses. The 

 terminal ones, whether of the calyx or corolla, are much more 

 to be trusted. 



