Gastridium.] geamine^e. 683 



Gram. Aust. iv. 24, t. 41. Br. Fl. p. 518. Arundo arenaria, E. 

 B. t. 520. 



On the loose sand of the sea-shore. Fl. July. Fr. September. If. 



E. Med. — At the E. end of the Dover, Kyde, very sparingly. In driving sand 

 on St. Helens spit, in great abundance. On the beach at Sandown, in small 

 quantity. 



W. Med. — Norton spit, by Yarmouth, in some plenty. 



Boot or rather rhizoma creeping deeply and widely in the loose sand, of the 

 thickness of a quill, smooth, cylindrical and fistulose, straw-yellow, jointed, emit- 

 ting from the joints white, woolly, somewhat compressed, flexuose, scarcely branching 

 fibres. Culms erect or ascending at base, the lower part often buried horizontally 

 beneath the sand, about 2 or 3 feet high, straw-yellow, slender, round, hard and 

 polished, filled with cellular tissue or somewhat perforate, naked for a consider- 

 able distance at top, the remainder invested by the long, convolute, striated sheaths 

 of the 3 or 4 (?) cauline leaves ; usually bent or geniculate about the middle at 

 the shining tumid articulation. Leaves long, linear, erect, very rigid, but not dif- 

 ficult to break or tear, very like those of Trilicum junceum, but still more rigid, 

 with far more prominent ribs above, concave or a little involute, very smooth and 

 polished on their convex side, tapering to a fine point. Ligule very long, often 

 an inch or more, acuminate, torn or split irregularly, mostly hi- or tripartite. 

 Panicle compound, very close, spicate, cylindrical, tapering at each end, 5 or 6 

 inches long, pale straw-yellow like the culm. Glumes lanceolate, nearly equal, 

 compressed and chaffy, the inner one with three, the outer with a single green rib. 

 Floret surrounded with a tuft of short silky hairs at its base, about ^rd of its own 

 length, on one side of which is a minute scale, attached to the calyx, probably an 

 abortive second floret. PaletB nearly equal, with a few (3 or 4) green ribs, notched 

 a little at the acute summit of each; keel bristly, and in the outer valve termi- 

 nating in a very short roujjh point, hardly to be called an awn, and scarcely reach- 

 ing the apex. Anthers at first purple, afterwards buff-coloured. Styles distant ; 

 stigmas long, loosely feathery. Seed free, loosely enclosed in the palea, pale 

 brown, oblong or obconical, terete, with a groove on each side, partially perfected 

 only in each panicle. 



I cannot learn that there exists any peculiar name for this plant in the island, 

 where it is known only as Spire, a term applied by the islanders to all the larger- 

 spiked and close-panicled grasses, Carices and Typhae. 



VI. Gasteidium, p. de Beauv. Nit-grass. 



'^Panicle contracted, spiked. Spikelets scarcely compressed. 

 Glumes 2, acute, awnless, ventricose and rounded at the base, 

 keeled upwards, membranaceous, much longer than the floret, 

 Glumellas 2, membranaceous ; outer one truncate or toothed at 

 the end, with (or without) a long straight awn below the point, 

 Neuter florets 0."—Br. Fl. 



1. Q. lendigerum, Beauv. Awned Nit-grass. Panicle dense 

 spicate, glumes very acute, florets (mostly) awned. Br. Fl. p. 521, 

 Milium lendigerum, Sm. E. Fl. i. p. 88. Lind. Syn. p. 303. E, 

 B. xvi. t. 1107. Curt. Br. Entom. xiv. t. et fol. 650. Gaud. Fl, 

 Helv. i. p. 177. Sibth. Fl. Grceca, i. t. 65. Host. Gram. Aust. iii. 

 17, t. 24. 



By waysides, in waste places, dry rough pastures, and amongst corn, also in 

 woods occasionally ; of very frequent occurrence, i^i. June — October. 0. 



E. Med. — Very frequent about Eyde in certain years, as between Quarr and 

 the Fish-houses, in the fields and along the roadside. On the Dover and at Sea 

 View. Amongst corn by a farm at Westridge, and in wheat-fields about West- 



