112 



BRITISH GRASSES. 



floret is small and polished; ovary ovate; styles long and 

 slender ; stigmas feathery ; stamens three, long and thread- 

 shaped; anthers cloven at both ends. 



This is a coarse grass, undesirable for agricultural 



purposes, but showy in ap- 

 pearance, and well calculated 

 for the landscape-garden, es- 

 pecially when the ripening 

 seed weighs down the pani- 

 cles, and thus causes the 

 culms to arch outwards. It 

 is hardly indigenous in Bri- 

 tain, and only found as a 

 weed in cornfields ; it flowers 

 all the summer and autumn, 

 and this long flowering-sea- 

 son makes it the more suit- 

 able as a garden plant. It 

 is a native of Europe, North 

 America, the East Indies, 

 and New Holland, in cultivated or waste land, which is 

 either moist or occasionally inundated. 



The Cockspur Panicum is easily distinguished, for it 

 and the Triodia decumbens are the only British grasses 

 destitute of a ligule. Its crowded panicle, with its few 

 dense spike-like branches, and the long, smooth, fine, 

 transparent bristles situated in tufts about the spikelets, 

 are specific distinctions patent to every observer. 



This family contains many grasses of importance, as 

 affording food for man. The Panicum Italicum is called 

 the " True Panick-grass," and is the one cultivated ex- 

 tensively in Italy and elsewhere for its abundant seeds ; 

 its culms are slender, and the almost cylindrical panicles 



