TRIANDRIA— DIGYNIA. Triticum. 185 



On steep banks, and rocks, by the sea side, between Arbroath and 

 Montrose. Mr. G. Don. 



Perennial. July, but rarely. 



Root of several long, strong, very woolly fibres, suited to a sandy 

 soil. Sterns ascending, 12 or 18 inches high, simple, wavy, slen- 

 der, rigid, leafy ; hairy at the top. Leaves linear, keeled, taper- 

 pointed, folded rather than involute, many-ribbed ; smooth be- 

 neath ; very hairy on the upper side. Sheaths close, striated, 

 smooth. Stipula scarcely any. Spike terminal, erect, an inch or 

 more in length, pale, bluntish, compressed, of numerous small 

 oblong spikelets, so closely crowded as to depress each other. 

 Florets variable in number from 3 to 6 or 7, either smooth or 

 hairy. Calyx-valves elliptic-oblong, with a terminal, straight, 

 rough awn, as long as themselves ; their lateral ribs obsolete, 

 or smoothed away, not turgid as in T. prostratum, a species next 

 akin to this, but with a shorter, rounder, spike, annual root, and 

 branched stem. The outer valve of the corolla resembles the 

 calyx, but is longer ; inner notched at the summit, its margins 

 inflexed, as usual, at the lateral ribs. 



Gmelin remarks that the hairiness of the leaves is variable. The 

 spikelets, in one of the Linneean specimens, are extremely hairs'^; 

 in another, like Mr. Don's, smooth. In one Siberian specimen 

 they are viviparous, apparently after the manner of alpine grasses ; 

 the transformed glumes singularly enlarged, and strongly ribbed, 



T. imbricatum of Marschall von Bierberstein, Fl. Taurico-Cauca- 

 sica, V. 1 . 88, sent from the Gottingen garden by Professor 

 Schrader, seems to differ from the cristatum in the much greater 

 dimensions of its herbage only, the spike being very like that of 

 our wild specimen, and but little larger. T. pectinatum of the 

 same author is but the smooth state of cristatum ,- and I am well 

 satisfied that pubescence is here of no importance. 



5. T. loliaceum. Dwarf Sea Wheat-grass. 



Calyx-valves obtuse, awnless. Florets numerous, awnless, 

 elliptical, ribbed. Spike unilateral. Stem branched. 

 Root fibrous. 



T. loliaceum. Fl. Br. 159. Engl. Bot. v. 4. t. 221. Willd.Sp. PL 



v. 1.483. With. 174. Knappt.ll4. Hook. Scot. 45. Schrad. 



Germ. v. I. 395. 

 T. unilaterale. Ait. Hort. Kew. ed.l.v.l.l 22. Host Gram. v. 2. 21 , 



t. 27 ; but not of Linnaus. 

 Poa loliacea. Huds. 43. Relh. 37. 

 Gramen pumilum, loliaceo simile. Rail Syn. 395. 

 G. exile duriusculum maritimum, foliolis circumvolutis, veluti jun- 



ceis, brevibus. Pluk. Phyt. t. 32. f. 7. 

 G. loliaceum maritimum biuncialc. ^Ioris. v. 3. 182. sect.8. t. 2.f. 6. 

 G. loliaceum exile durius. Rel. Rudb. 13./. 



