65 
BROMUS INTERRUPTUS. 
By G. Cxuarmee Druce, Hon.M.A., F.L.S. 
(Puate 457a.) 
Tse above plant, which was diagnosed in this Journal for 1895 
(p. 844), and fully described in the Journal of the Linnean Society 
(Botany), xxxii. p. oh sep has also been alluded to in the Flora 
of Berkshire, p. her he Reports of the Botanical Exchange Club 
for 1895, p. 503 (1897), for 1901, p- 30 (1902), and 1902, p. 64 
at the Flora of Kent, p. 418, and this Journal for 1897, 
pp. 18-20. 
ie addition to, or in emendation of, the description already 
given, it may be observed that in the wild state, growing as it 
usually does in annual crops, its duration is usually annual. Its 
alliance is evidently with 5. mollis L., but it differs from this, and 
_ indeed from every British grass, in having the palea always split 
nearly to the base; and in the almost sessile lower spikelets being 
often compound. ‘It i is normally of a taller growth ; for instance, 
when associated with B. mollis, as this year, in a field near West 
Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, at an altitude of over 500 feet, B. 
interruptus was on the average 25 per cent. taller than B. mollis. 
In luxuriant specimens four feet high the splitting of the palea 
was equally se and the stiff interrupted panicle equally 
efinite in characte 
Mr. F. "Tutnail, one of the managers of Messrs. Sutton 
at Satie who knew the oe teed _ well in all their stages 
of growth as well as their fruits, grew B. inter crane and B. mollis 
side by side in the ‘‘ Trial Gr ret ”” collected the fruits, and culti- 
vated them. for some years. From the result of this test he became 
convinced that they were distinct species. The grains of one could 
be picked out from the other when mixed, and while B. mollis 
from igen to year, B. interruptus remained remarkably con 
5 Mr. L. V. Lester, having found it plentifully in a -eaincy 
comfield a Elsfield, near Oxford, noticed the palea was spilt, and 
drew my attention to the character. The result of my examination 
of many hundreds of specimens showed that this character was 
constant, = in that year it was duly diagnosed and published as a 
full specie 
Sines that time I have met with B, interruptus in many counties 
of southern, eastern, and central England, but have not observed 
it abroad in Europe, Asia, or Africa, although the countries which 
were once the granaries of Rome have been especially searched; I 
have not seen it in any pe ojaalg herbarium, nor has Professor 
Hackel seen a continental specim 
As to its cree of ckasanbens one cannot speak confidently ; 
from its apparent absence from continental herbaria, and from the 
fact that Professor Hackel has not seen any other than British 
specimens, it may be urged that in B. interruptus we have an 
Journat or Botany.—Vou, 42. {Marcu, 1904.] 
