176 



BRITISH GRASSES. 



from six to twelve inches high ; joints smooth ; leaves 

 bristle-shaped, short, roughish ; sheaths small, panicle 

 spreading, compound, erect, loose, the branches hair-like, 

 placed in clusters of three along the rachis, then forked and 

 branched again, rather zigzag in form, roughish, tinted 

 with purple ; spikelets small, silver-grey, tumid, and rounded 

 at the base ; outer glumes equal, membranaceous, the keels 

 somewhat toothed, not ribbed at the sides ; flowering glumes 

 sessile, with two long slender teeth at the summit, hairy at 

 the base, awned ; awn very long, slender, arising from the 

 keel, about halfway between the base and the centre, bent 

 or geniculated where it comes on a level with the points of 

 the apex teeth, and protruding to a considerable distance 

 beyond the outer glumes ; palea also membranaceous, thin, 

 the same length as the flowering glume without its teeth, 

 also toothed at the summit, but the teeth broad and short, 

 minutely haired at the edges ; the second floret is a little 

 smaller than the first, and is placed on a very minute foot- 

 stalk, and sometimes sessile. 



The Silvery Hair-grass resembles the Early Hair- 

 grass in many particulars, 

 but it is of rather larger 

 growth, and its panicle is 

 spreading when in flower, 

 and does not contract when 

 in seed. Nearly all its 

 leaves are upon the stem, it 

 bears scarcely any from the 

 root, and the little foliage it 

 has withers away like that 

 of the Early Hair-grass, 

 under the united influence 

 of sun and drought. It 

 grows in the same kind of 



