192 BRITISH GRASSES. 



and the Europeans send their servants into the plains to 

 collect plants of Doob, which they carefully plant in the 

 situation chosen for the lawn, and have a fair chance of 

 seeing their efforts ultimately crowned with success. 



In the north of Italy it is very common, springing up 

 in quiet streets, and flowering at many seasons like Poa 

 annua. 



This grass is mentioned by Dioscorides, who describes 

 it as " having jointed creeping shoots, throwing out 

 sweet roots from their joints, and pointed, hard, broad 

 leaves, like a small kind of reed, which are the food of 

 cattle." It abounds in Greece. 



Genus XXII. SPARTINA. 



Gen. Char. Spikelets single-flowered, sessile; outer glumes 

 boat-like, compressed, converging, very unequal, pointed, the 

 broader one striated ; flowering glume longer than the small 

 outer glume, but shorter than the long one, linear, com- 

 pressed, narrowing to a point at the summit ; palea like the 

 flowering glume, intermediate in length between it and the 

 longer outer glume ; scales none ; ligules very short, ovary 

 narrow, pointed $ filaments slender ; anthers long, forked 

 at both ends ; styles thread-shaped, erect, longer than the 

 filaments ; stigmas short, feathery ; seed oblong, compressed. 



1. Spartina stricta, Smith. Cord Spartina. 



(JDactylis, Eng. Bot. Cord-grass.) 



Root strong, creeping, perennial ; stems smooth, cylin- 

 drical, ribbed, stiff, erect, invested with the sheaths to the 

 base of the spikes ; joints several, all covered ; leaves rigid, 

 erect, flat, excepting at the end, when fresh, rolled in when 

 dry, and easily separable from their sheaths ; sheaths smooth, 



