598 GEAMiNE^. [Poa. 



numerous, fascicled, much shorter than the culms, about a line in breatlth, flat- 

 tish or somewhat conduplicate, bright green, with a slightly glaucous tinge, acute, 

 minutely serrato-spinvilose along their narrow cartilaginous margins, mostly 

 wavy or curved and suberect or spreading at various angles to their long, pale or 

 purplish, strongly ribbed and sheathing bases. Ligule oblongJanceolate, acute, 

 clasping, decurrent, entire or torn. Panicle terminal, very small, from about J lo 

 1^ inch in length, close and spike-like before ^and after?) flowering,* spreading 

 when in bloom, the branches short, semiverticillate, mostly in pairs, tumid and 

 cartilaginous at their junction with the rachis, simple or very sliglnly compound, 

 the lower ones sometimes considerably distant from the rest, subangular and 

 flexuose like the rachis, and, with the latter, smooth or beset witli a few scattered 

 spinules merely ; said to be often proliferous in other countries. Spi/cetets ovate, 

 compressed, 3 — 4 flowered, acute, florets longer than the glumes. Glumes about 

 equal, deeply concave, acute, green, with very broad membranous margins more 

 or less tinged with purple, glabrous, rough on the upper part of the acute keel 

 with a few .spinules, .sometimes smooth; S-ribbed, the two lateral ribs about half 

 the length of the glume, and about half the distance between the dorsal rib and 

 the slightly erose margin of the glume. Florets longer than the glumes, the up- 

 permost one pedicellate. Palete very unequal, the lower and outer one much the 

 larger and nearly similar to the glumes in form, glabrous excepting at the base 

 and along the acute keel, where it is clothed for a considerable distance upwards 

 with white hairs, those at the base long, loose and cottony, on the back shorter, 

 straight, erect and finger-like, very obscurely 5-ribbed, so faintly indeed as to ap- 

 pear nearly obsolete ; innfr pale narrow elongato-oblong, glabrous, rather shorter 

 than the outer, diaphanous, with two green, finely spinulose, ciliated ribs bound- 

 ing its inflexed margins, the apex entire, acute or torn, and often bifid. Stamens 

 finally much protruded on their long, slender, white ^Zammte; an(Aers yellow or 

 purplish, cells conjoined in the middle for nearly half their length. Styles fea- 

 thery, scarcely compound, the branches simple, distant, spinulose. Germen mi- 

 nute, ovoid, suhglobose. 



This humble and inconspicuous but interesting species is not easily detected by 

 such as are unacquainted with its habits and appearance in a living state, for 

 which reason it has probably been overlooked in many a spot productive of it. I 

 cannot find any figure of this grass conveying a just idea of its aspect excepting 

 that old one of Vaillant (Fl. Par. t. 17, fig. 8) : those of ' English Botany,' Knapp 

 and Parnell are all very defective : that of Host. Gram. Aust. ii. t. 65, if not a 

 diS'erent species, is a gigantic variety, with infinitely broader leaves, larger panicle, 

 and every part expanded in proportion. Before the panicle opens, the appear- 

 ance of this part is that of a dwarf specimen of Koehleria crislata, or even some- 

 what resembling Aira prcecox, but when in flower the similarity is no longer 

 obvious, and the plant might pass at a hasty glance for a contracted form of P. 

 annua, or still more of P. compressa. 



5. P. compressa, L. Flat-stemmed Meadow-grass. " Panicle 

 subsecund spreading (afterwards subcoarctate), spilcelets oblong 

 of 5 — 7 obtuse florets, upper sheath as long as or shorter than its 

 leaf, culm compressed, root creeping." — Br. Fl. p. 537. E. B. t. 

 365. Host. Gram. Aust. ii. 51, t. 70. 



On dry barren fields, wall-tops and banks ; rare? Fl. June, July. If. 

 If. Med. — Abundantly in a dry elevated field above the southern extremity of 

 Swainston park, and near Eowledge barn. Dr. Bell-Salter, Septr., 1843!!! 



* In this state Mr. Borrer remarks that the panicle resembles that of Koehleria 

 crislata, only it is much smaller. 



