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On Poa Sudetica as a British Plant. By Andrew 

 Brqtherston. 



The broad, shining, peculiar green leaves first attracted my 

 attention in the spring of 1872.' In June following I got it 

 in flower ; but not having any description of it, I sent a 

 specimen to Professor Babington, who determined it to be 

 Poa Sudetica. This habitat was not satisfactory, being 

 within private grounds ; but from the appearance of the 

 plants, and an indistinct recollection that I had seen it 

 somewhere else, before I began to study the grasses, and 

 also from its geographical distribution on the Continent, I 

 thought it not unlikely that it might be found truly wild in 

 Scotland. So I sent a notice to the " Scottish Naturalist," 

 ii., p. 32, in hopes that some one else had picked it up. 

 ' Next season (1873) I kept a look out for it in suitable 

 places, and was rewarded by observing it in considerable 

 plenty in Springwood Park woods (May 13th, 1873), to all 

 appearances truly wild. It was growing there on a steep 

 bank under old trees. Being at Newtondon in September 

 for specimens of Veronica peregrina and Chenopodium 

 polyspermum, I saw a bank covered with it. About the 

 same time (September) Mr. Kelly — who had seen the notice 

 in the " Scot. Nat." — sent me a specimen saying, " that if it 

 was P. Sudetica, it was abundant in Blackadder plantations." 

 It is also plentiful in the wooded bank at Pinnacle Hill, 

 Kelso, and I observed a few plants in the Rabbit-braes 

 plantation (Hendersyde). 



Besides the above stations, where, I believe, it is truly wild, 

 as none of them were ever under cultivation, being too steep, 

 and also from the age (150 or 200 (?) years), of some of the 

 trees it is growing under, which would be there before any 

 of the grasses were cultivated in this country, I have seen 

 it in several others which had been under cultivation at- 

 some time or other. But it does not affect the same sort of 

 habitat as our introduced plants. I have never seen it in a 

 field or on road-sides, and any plants that are near the river 

 are above water-mark, whereas the "wool" and other intro- 

 ductions are generally on the gravelly spots liable to be 

 flooded, or about the sides of roads and footpaths, to which 

 the gravel has been taken. 



The best time to look for this plant is during winter or 

 spring, when the root leaves can be seen ; when once known 



