604 GEAMiNEiE. [Briza. 



in the old station betwixt Quarr abbey and Fishbourne, in the left-hand field, sown 

 with oats, though not amongst the crop, but occupying a broad strip of land along 

 the margin of the field lying fallow, growing in considerable abundance with Au- 

 then)is Cotula and Gastridium lendigerum. 



Root a small tuft of compressed somewhat downy fibres, annual. Culms soli- 

 tary or several, erect, from 6 to 18 or 20 inches high, round, pale, striated and 

 shining, smooth except a slight roughness only for a short distance beneath the 

 panicle, clothed with leaves nearly to their summits. Leaves rather broad, elon- 

 gato-lanceolate, taper-pointed, erect, of a pale yellowish and rather glaucous ten- 

 der green, glabrous, rough at the edges and slightly so on the thin sharp keel and 

 numerous close ribs beneath, one side of their lower part spirally embracing the 

 stem as far as the joint, constituting, with the other less-overlapping edge of the 

 leaf, a tight-fitting though otherwise open grooved sheath. Ligule thin, white, its 

 free portion oblong, more or less irregularly pointed, notched or torn, seldom 

 truncate or obtuse, though often rounded, always longer than in B. media, closely 

 embracing the culm. Panicle roundish, of several alternate pairs of rough, very 

 slender, spreading branches, dividing into numerous capillary, divaricate, waved 

 and scabrous ramifications, each supporting an ovato-triangular, tremulous and 

 pendant spikelet, of a pale, sometimes purplish, green colour, scarcely above half 

 the size of those in B. media. Glumes nearly equal, boat-shaped, very obtuse, 

 quite smooth, green, with deep membranous edges tinged with purple, the inferior 

 or outer with 3, the superior or inner with 6, pellucid ribs, the lateral pair in this 

 last much shorter than the three intermediate nerves and less strongly marked. 

 Florets in all the specimens I have examined 5 or 6, not projecting beyond the 

 sides of the triangle of which the extreme width of the calyx is the base, and 

 therefore in this sense shorter than the glumes, though the two lowermost florets 

 protrude considerably above the edges of these last. Outer palea very deep, hel- 

 met-shaped (or patelliform ?), a little scabrous, the base very gibbous, pale green, 

 3-nerved, expanding into a deep, pellucid and membranous border, the lower part 

 of which is green, with three ribs on each side of unequal length, the two upper 

 and shortest diverging and not continued beyond the coloured portion, or at all 

 connected with the three nearly parallel basal nerves, the centre one of which only 

 approaches the inflexed summit of the valve ; inner palea deeply concealed in the 

 basal cavity of the outer, broadly ovate or elliptical, flat, white, scabrous and pel- 

 lucid, somewhat pointed, with a single strong green rib on each side near the 

 inflexed margin. Anthers purplish, very short, included or at most just visible 

 occasionally at the margin of the pales, scarcely protruded when in flower as in 

 B. media. Germen roundish or slightly turbinate, gibbous on one side. Styles 

 long, slender, subapproximale, nearly simple, often a little protruded. The sta- 

 mens appear to me, from repealed examination, to be either imperfect or wholly 

 wanting in the majority of the lowermost Jlorets of each spikelet, as well as the 

 styles. 



A still more elegant grass than the preceding, from which it is easily distin- 

 guishable on a slight inspection by the paler herbage, denser panicle and long 

 pointed ligule. In size this species is not inferior to the last, and the trivial name 

 of aspera, proposed by Knapp, would have been more suitable than its present 

 long-eslablished, but at first view inappropriate, one oi minor, had not the latter 

 been given it in reference to a far larger plant, the B. iiia.iima, L., between which 

 and itself our commoner species (B. media) holds a middle rank. 



Till of late years B. minor has been regarded as one of our rarest British 

 grasses, and two or three spots in the extreme western part of England were for a 

 long time the only recorded localities, most of the specimens then existing in 

 herbaria having been supplied from Penzance or from Jersey. It is now ascer- 

 tained to be much more widely distributed with us, though apparently limited to 

 the counties S. of London. Stations have been discovered for it in Devon, Dor- 

 set, Somerset and Hants, and nowhere perhaps does it occur in greater abundance 

 and luxuriance than in cornfields at Marshwood, near Southampton. It has not 

 yet been noticed in Ireland, though quite a western plant: its range to the north- 

 ward in this country maybe fixed at about 51? 20', or the parallel of Bath, beyond 



