AIRA. 173 



montana are eaten with avidity by sheep, and are also 

 relished by horses and cows. 



This grass is generally distributed throughout the 

 British Isles, and is common all over Europe, and in 

 parts of Asia, North America, and in Antarctic South 

 America. 



3. Aira canescens, Linn. Grey Air a, 



{Gorynephorus, Bab.) 



Boot perennial, tufted; stems very leafy, erect, round, 

 smooth, cylindrical ; joints three ; leaves bristle-shaped, 

 short, rough, glaucous, tufted; sheaths ribbed, rough, the 

 uppermost one so long as to embrace the base of the spread- 

 ing panicle ; ligule prominent, acute ; panicle compound, 

 close before and after flowering, spreading in flower, dense, 

 and narrow, tinged with purple ; rachis smooth, branches 

 rough ; spikelets numerous, crowding, each containing two 

 florets; outer glumes lanceolate, pointed, unequal, minutely 

 toothed on the keels ; flowering glume shorter than the 

 outer ones, acute, not ribbed at the sides, hairy at the base, 

 awned ; awn long, rising from a little above the base of the 

 flowering glume, club-shaped at the apex, not reaching as 

 far as the point of the outer glume, it is jointed, has a cir- 

 cular fringe around the joint about midway between the 

 base and apex ; palea slightly shorter than the flowering 

 glume, membranaceous, notched at the summit; styles 

 short ; stigmas long and feathery ; filaments slender ; an- 

 thers short, dark purple. 



The peculiar structure of the awn distinguishes this 

 from every other British grass. It is a very rare spe- 

 cies, its only British habitats on record being the sandy 

 coasts of Dorset, Norfolk, and Suffolk, and the Channel 

 Islands. It is a small plant, seldom attaining a greater 



