Briza.] ORAMiNEiE. 603 



what creeping. Culms 1 or 2, erect, from about 10 to 18 or 20 inches high, round, 

 slender, striate, somewhat riffid, shining and glabrous, pale green or purplish; 

 always, when fully grown, naked or leaiiess to a grealer or less distance below the 

 panicle. Leaves linear, erect, of a pale somewhat glaucous green, acute, roughish 

 above and along their edges, flat, those of ihe stem few (4 or 6), short, the upper- 

 most one extremely so and lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate, often very minute, 

 those of the root-suckers longer. Sheaths smooth, ribbed and striate, close or but 

 slightly inflated, that of the superior leaf extremely elongated, of the rest less ex- 

 tended, but always shorter than the internodes. Ligule extremely short (about a 

 line in length), truncale and obtuse (rarely elongated and acuie, Bab.), entire or 

 erose, torn, and in its adnate portion sheathing the culm. Panicle not much 

 compounded, erect, mostly of a pyramidal or triangular outline, of a few distant, 

 alternate, divaricate pairs of spreading or patent, capillary, slightly scabrous 

 branches, mostly, like the rachis, of a purplish tinge, straight or slightly flexuose, 

 angular, the lowermost pair or two simple or undivided for a considerable distance 

 from their tumid cartilaginous bases, beyond that sparingly and divaricately rami- 

 fied, those at the apex of the panicle very short and quite sim])le. Spilcelets com- 

 pressed, mostly 7-flowered, nodding or pendulous on the hair-like, wavy and ulti- 

 mate branches of the panicle, rather larger, far fewer and more distant than in B. 

 minor, ovate, ovato-triangular or ovato-rotundate, acute or obtuse, glabrous, pret- 

 tily variegated and shining with green, white and purplish brown, sometimes pale 

 green. Florets imbricated, sessile. Glumes equal, glabrous, shorter than the two 

 inferior florets, their extreme breadth forming the base of a triangle whose sides 

 if described would intersect the points of the latter, hence giving to each spikelet 

 a more truly ovate figure than those of B. minor; boat-shaped, purplish, with 

 white, scariose, entire margins, slightly keeled, the lower and outer with 3, inner 

 and upper with 5, pellucid ribs bordered with purplish green, the middle one alone 

 of each glume continued to the apex, the lateral pair of the inner and upper glume 

 very short, much less distinct or even obsolete. Palece smooth ; outer one very 

 deeply concave, rather more helmet- than boat-shaped, gibbous and green at the 

 base, purplish on the sides, with a well-defined, white, membranous border, 

 5-ribbed, the lateral ribs branching into three from their origin, the central rib 

 produced into a faint keel at its apex, the intermediate pair less strongly marked, 

 all continued to the membranous margin of the valve, but not entering the latter; 

 inner valve obovato-oblong, membranous, a little concave externally, with a single 

 green rib on each side near the minutely spinulose, ciliated, not indexed edges, 

 but not reaching the emarginate apex. Stamens short; anthers pale yellow or 

 purplish. Styles long, feathery, tapering, simply branched. Scale deeply cleft. 



2. B. minor, L. Small Quaking-grass. Spikelets triangular, 

 glumes longer than the lowermost florets, culms leafy above and 

 as well as the branches of the compound many-flowered panicle 

 scabrous, anthers included, ligule elongated acute, root annual. 

 Sm.E.Fl. i. p. 133. Br. Fl. p. 541. E. B. xix. t. 1316. Ber- 

 tol. Fl. Ital. i. p. 561. Host. Gram. Aust. ii. 22, t. 28. Sihth. Fl. 

 Gr<Bca, i. t. 74. Parn. Br. Grasses, p. 226, t. 101. (minime bona). 

 B. aspera, Knapp. Gram. Brit. t. 61. Parn. Gr. t. 101. 



In cultivated fields, amongst corn, &c., also in pasture-ground ; very rare. Fl. 

 June, July. /^r. August. 0. 



E. Mei.— Abundant in certain years in the two last fields between Quarr abbey 

 and Fish-houses, always most plentiful when the land is cropped with corn. In 

 1836, when I first observed it, the quantity was very moderate, but the year fol- 

 lowing it was abundant, I think amongst oats, and in 1839 came up in profusion 

 both amongst wheat and vetches. In 1840 scarcely a specimen could be found, 

 but in 1842 it was again plentiful, also in 1843, in the right-hand field (from 

 Quarr), then a lay. In 1838, when the land was laid down with clover, the plant 

 almost totally disappeared. Again abundant in 18-15. I found it this year (1849) 



