﻿66 GRASSES OF SCOTLAND. 



Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy, but has 

 not been discovered in Lapland or America. Its limit of altitude, 

 2000 feet above the sea. 



Flowers in the first week in July, and ripens its seed in the second 

 week of August. 



45. Cynosurus echinatus. * 

 Rough Dog's- Tail Grass. 



Specific Characters. — Florets with a long awn, about equal in 

 length to the palea. (Plate XXVIII.) 



Description. — It grows from ten to twenty inches high. The root is 

 annual, tufted, strong, frequently with woolly fibres. Stem erect, round, 

 smooth, and finely striated, bearing five leaves with slightly roughish 

 sheaths ; the upper sheath about equal in length to its leaf, crowned 

 with a long pointed ligule. Joints short, smooth. Leaves flat, broad 

 at the base, tapering to a sharp point, rough on both surfaces, of a 

 dull light green. Inflorescence simple panicled, dense, various in 

 luxuriance, of a silvery green. Panicle somewhat oval, from half- an 

 inch to an inch in length, and from a quarter to half-an inch broad, 

 with very short rough branches all leaning to one side. Spikelets 

 usually of three- awned florets, accompanied at the base with a beauti- 

 ful pectinated involucre, with rough acute divisions, Fig. 3, (Fig. 4, 

 involucre magnified.) Calyx of two narrow acute membranous 

 glumes, nearly of equal lengths, without lateral ribs, roughish on the 

 keels (Fig. 1.) Florets of two paleae; the outer palea of lowermost 

 floret much shorter than the calyx, of an ovate lanceolate form, five- 

 ribbed, tipped with a long slender rough awn, about equal in length 

 to the palea, (Fig. 2.) Inner palea membranous, pellucid, rather 

 shorter than the outer palea, with the margins minutely fringed. 



Obs. — This plant, independent of its dense bristly panicle, is dis- 

 tinguished from Cynosurus cristatus in many respects ; as in the leaves 

 being broader and roughish behind ; ligule long and acute ; calyx 

 much longer than the lowermost floret; awn equal in length or 

 longer than the outer palea, and the involucre larger, rougher, and 

 more bristly ; — whereas in C. cristatus the leaves are smooth and po- 



* Cynosurus echinatus, Linn. Koch, Smith, Hooker, Lindley. 



