220 BRITISH GRASSES. 



months, it might be well worth the care of deer-keepers 

 to sow it beneath the shade of the spreading beeches, 

 and in the waste rocky places, to secure food for the 

 game. 



The long cylindrical spikelets distinguish this grass 

 from all of similar inflorescence. 



It grows in moist woods and stony places all over 

 Britain, and also in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and 

 Russia. 



It flowers early in July. 



2. Brachypodium pinnatum, Beauv. Heath False- 



Brome. 



Boot perennial, a little creeping ; stem a foot and a half 

 or two feet high, erect, simple, round, leafy, very smooth, 

 rigid, scarcely tapering; joints four, hairy ; leaves somewhat 

 erect, lanceolate, pointed, rather rigid, and ribbed, rough, 

 with prominent centre rib ; sheaths smooth, polished, lower 

 ones with drooping hairs; ligule short, blunt, hairy; spike 

 simple, erect, two-rowed; spikelets very slightly stalked, 

 containing ten florets ; rachis roughish, grooved, smooth on 

 the groove ; outer glumes unequal, somewhat elliptical, 

 ribbed, awned ; flowering glumes longer than outer one, 

 roughish. five-ribbed, awned ; awns rough, half the length 

 of glumes; palea shorter, blunt, having two green ribs 

 fringed with white hairs on the upper half; anthers yellow. 



This handsome species loves a dry calcareous soil, and is 

 found in stony places in hilly countries. It is much more 

 scarce than the slender False-Brome, but is indigenous in 

 most chalk districts. Dr. Parnell mentions many counties 

 as its habitats, — Devonshire, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, 

 Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Somerset, Sussex, Kent, Suffolk, 

 Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire, 





