Triticuvi.] gramine^. 619 



some authors look upon as two distinct genera, Tiilicum and Agropyruni (Beam. 

 Lindl.) We have only the latter genus or group in Britain. ' 



1. T. rejjens, L. Creeping -rooted Wheat- grass. Couch-grass. 

 "Spike elongated, spikelets 4 — 8 flowered, glumes acuminate 

 awned or awnless 5—7 ribbed, outer glumella acuminate or with 

 an awn scarcely ever so long as the glumella 5 -nerved, rachis of 

 the spikelets scabrous, leaves plane or slightly involute at the 

 edge, root creeping." —5r. i?"?. p. 556. E. B. t. 909. Host. 

 Gram. Aust. ii. 17, t. 21 (minime bona). 



0. liitorea. Very glaucous. An T. glaucum. Host. Gram. Aust. iv. 6, t. 10 ? 

 and as Professor Meisner, when he saw it here this summer (1850), supposed it 

 to be. 



On hedgehanks, borders of fields, in waste and cultivated places, woods, &c. ; 

 common. Fl. June— August. If.. 



fi. By the salt-ditches on the Dover at Ryde. Abundant under the shore at 

 Apley, and along the coast at the Priory, Sea View, &c. Under Apley walk the 

 plant may be found exhibiting all gradations between the unawned and awned 

 slate, and of every colour between the usual inland green and the intensest blue or 

 glaucescent hue which it commonly assumes near the sea. 



2. T. junceum, L. Rushy Sea-side Wheat-grass. " Spikelets 

 distinct 4 — 6 flowered, glumes obtuse many-ribbed, outer glumella 

 obtuse or slightly mucronulate 5 -nerved, rachis of the spike 

 smooth or minutely toothed on the angles, leaves involute pun- 

 gent, root creeping." — Br. Fl. p. 556. E. B. t. 814. Host. 

 Gram. Aust. ii. 18, t. 22? (dubia); idem, iii. 23, t. 33 (bona). 

 Sibth. Fl. Grcec. i. t. 99. 



On sandy banks and hillocks by the sea-beach ; in great plenty. Fl. June, 

 July. U. 



E. Med. — Very fine along the shore a little E. of Ryde, just beyond Apley 

 house. Sandy shore at the Priory, 1846. 



W. Med. — On the sandy shore at Norton, in great abundance, 1846. 



Whole plant rigid and glabrous. Root (rhizoma) creeping extensively in the 

 loose sand, slender, tough and rigid, emitting numerous whitish, downy, branched 

 and flexuose, thready fibres, and white runners with sheathing scales at the joints, 

 sometimes ending in ovoid bulbous bodies, consisting of densely aggregated im- 

 bricating laminae. Culms from about 12 to 18 inches or 2 feet high, simple, 

 round, slender, glaucous and finely striated above, smooth, pale and polished be- 

 low, filled with cellular tissue, inclining or ascending, often decumbent at the 

 base, which is buried in the sand, and of a pale whitish or straw-yellow colour 

 tinged here and there with purple, usually naked for some little distance below the 

 spike, with a single geniculation above the centre of the culm, above which the 

 latter is slightly incurved or arcuate. Leaves spreading or divaricate, narrower than 

 in our other species, and appearing still more so from their much greater tendency 

 to become involute, which they always are near their points, that hence appear 

 subulate, the rest of the leaf simply concave or caniculate, often plane or nearly 

 so at their base; deeply and closely suloato-striate and very glaucous above from 

 the short, dense, bristly pubescence which covers their upper side, and which is 

 simple, appressed and diverging ; dull green, glabrous and slightly striated be- 

 neath, their margins a little thickened, cartilaginous and somewhat hairy at the 

 junction with the sheath. Sheaths long, close, striated, in all my specimens quite 

 glabrous (sometimes slightly downy or minutely scabrous, Bertol.), often tinged 

 with purple, the lower ones pale or straw-coloured. Ligule scarcely a line in 

 length, truncate, minutely erose. Spike about 4 to 6 or 8 inches long, slightly 

 bowed with the culm, seldom quite straight or erect as in our other two species. 



