172 



BRITISH GRASSES. 



the root-leaves vary much according to situation, being 

 short and curved in dry situations, but long and of a 



dark green in shady ones; 

 the brown hue of the florets 

 is also much deeper in shady 

 places, and the whole grass 

 more elegant. 



It is a familiar inhabitant 

 of grassy places on moors, 

 mingling its airy panicles 

 with globular heads of the 

 blue DeviFs-bit Scabious, or 

 raising them among the seas 

 of purple Heather so loved 

 by the grouse. Still more 

 attractive does it seem in the rocky woodland, where 

 the dwarfed Birch-trees contest the possession of the 

 ground with the crimson Heath, and the grey rocks are 

 fringed with blue Hair-bells and glittering brown florets 

 of the Air a flexuosa. 



The A. flexuosa is distinguished from the A. ccespitosa 

 by the bluntness of the ligule, the longer awn, and the 

 footstalk of the second floret being so short as not to 

 raise it as high as the larger outer glume; it differs 

 from A. caryophyllea also in the bluntness of the ligule, 

 and in the flowering glume being toothed at the sum- 

 mit. 



There is a variety called montana, the panicle of w r hich 

 is narrowed, the florets hairy at the base, the awn very 

 long and twisted, the general habit more slender, and 

 the lower floret extending prominently beyond the 

 smaller outer glume. 



Both the normal form of A. flexuosa and the variety 



