Phragmites.] GKAMiNEiE. 615 



lanceolate acuminato - cuspidate." — Br. Fl. p. 553. Arundo 

 Phragmites, L. : E. B. t. 401. Host. Gram. Aust. iv. 33, t. 39. 



/3. Culms procumbent, 30—40 feet long. Vide Kay, Syn. ed. 3tia, Indie. 

 Plant. Dub. Gramen arundinaceum. 30 pedes longum. P. communis b. repens, 

 Meyer, Chlor. Hanov. p. 650. 



In wet marshy places, moist thickets, sides of pools, rivers and ditches, also on 

 wet slipped land and in salt-marshes; very common. Fl. August, September. 

 J-r. October. Ijl. 



E. Med. — Ou the wet slipped land along the shore from Ryde towards the 

 Priory. In Whitefield wood. 



W. Jlferf.— Covers the mud-flats on the E. bank of the Yar, a little below Fresh- 

 water mill. 



/3. Common along the shore at Puckaster cove, trailing to a great length on the 

 flat sands, or hanging from the clay-banks above the beach ; also in other parts 

 of the island along the S. coast. In a ditch between Sandown bay and Lower 

 Morton farm I find it with culms of considerable length floating on the surface, 

 and emitting fibres from the joints, 1842. Near the Shanklin extremity of San- 

 down bay, also rooting at the joints, ] 842. At Bembridge, Dr. Bell-Salter. 



Root extensively creeping. Culm erect (or in the singular var. ;8. prostrate and 

 trailing), from about 4 or 6 to 8 and 10 or even 12 feet high, simple or occasion- 

 ally emitting a few short lateral shoots or branches, straight or slightly geniculate 

 at one or two of the lowermost joints, hard and rigid, hollow, scarcely tapering 

 from the base upwards in this island, rarely much exceeding a swan-quill in 

 thickness, at length woody. Leaves varying from narrowly lanceolate or linear- 

 lanceolate, alternate or often partly arranged unilaterally, spreading or more or 

 less erect, firm, glabrous, those about the middle of the stem largest, in full-sized 

 plants 18 — 20 inches or more in length and Ij inch wide, pale green and some- 

 what glaucous, especially beneath, finely ribbed and striated, flat, with one or two 

 marks of constriction across them, gradually acuminated into extremely long, fine 

 and slender, pale points, that are frequently split into fibres to a considerable dis- 

 tance downwards, rather inconspicuously and obtusely keeled in their lower half, 

 elliptically tapering at the base, their margins somewhat uneven and cartilaginous. 

 Sheaths imbricating, closely investing the culm, glabrous, finely striated, much 

 shorter than the leaves and concolorous, palish at their base, open behind the 

 greater part of their length, with narrow whitish brown margins. Ligule a. row 

 of extremely short, close-set, white, erect hairs. Panicle terminal, from a few 

 inches to a foot in length, of many alternate, fasciculate, somewhat whorled, com- 

 pound branches, smooth, angular, subcompressed, at first drooping unilaterally, 

 when in flower diff'usely spreading in a pyramidal form, the lower and longer Ones 

 a little drooping or recurved, and springing from a scale-like cartilaginous process 

 of the angular rachis, beset with long, white, silky hairs, and of which the supe- 

 rior branches are destitute, having merely a 2-lobed gland-like callosity at base 

 between them and the common axis. Spikelets very numerous, imbricated, dark 

 or sometimes brownish purple, linear-lanceolate, pedicellate, nearly J an inch in 

 length, 3- or 5- (mostly 3-) flowered, the lowermost floret subsessile and 

 staminate or sometimes perfect and naked at the base, the rest pedicellate and 

 perfect (androgynous), their pedicels compressed and fringed laterally with white 

 silky hairs, that gradually lengthen as the flowering advances, and when in seed 

 spreading in all directions, giving a beautiful plume-like appearance to the pa- 

 nicle. Glumes concave, glabrous, very unequal, much shorter than the florets ; 

 the inferior and outer elliptic-lanceolate, subaristato-acuminate, with three prin- 

 cipal and several often very indistinct ribs, and a slightly rough prominent keel ; 

 superior and inner linear-lanceolate, acute, about twice the length of the 

 other, distinctly 3-ribbed, scarcely keeled, the margins involute. Palece very 

 unequal ; the lower and outer about thrice the length of the inner one, linear-lan- 

 ceolate, very acutely acuminate, which with the inflexion of its edges causes it to 



