(i24 GEAMiNE^. [Spartina. 



middle, the smaller and inner ribless. Anthers white or yellowish; in many 

 florets I find the stamens entirely wanting. Ovarium subglobose. Styles short; 

 stigmas branched, plumose and spreading. 



From the analogy of this grass to Lolium, it is perhaps grateful to cattle in 

 salt-marsh pastures, but its natural produce in such situations is too insiguifioant 

 to deserve attention. 



ff Spike compound. Flowers or spihelets unilateral. 



XXXIV. Spaetina, Schreb. Cord-grass, 



" Spike compound. Partial spikes erect, racemose. Spikelets 

 sessile, awnless, arranged alternately in 2 rows on one side of the 

 partial rachis, laterally compressed, with one fertile and scarcely 

 any rudiments of a neuter floret. Glumes 3, very unequal, lanceo- 

 late, compressed. Glumellas 2, compressed, lanceolate, acumi- 

 nate. Styles united half-way up. Stigmas elongated. — Ligules 

 very short." — Br. Ft. 



1. S. striata, Roth. Tiviti-spiked Cord-grass. Spikes 2 — 3 

 subgeminate coarctate, florets hairy, larger calyx-valve simply 

 acuminate, leaves shorter than the spikes tapering at the base and 

 articulated upon their sheaths, the lower ones deciduous, rachis 

 scarcely produced beyond the terminal floret of each partial spike. 

 Sm. E. Fl. i. p. 136. Br. Fl. p. 561. Lindl. Syn. p. 298. E. B. 

 vi. t. 389 (Dact. stricta), Bromf. in Hook. Comp. to Bot. Mag. ii. 

 p. 254. Bertol. Fl. Ital. i. p. 575. 



In muddy salt-marshes, creeks and inlets of the sea, and about the mouths of 

 rivers within reach of the tide, in many places. Fl. July — September. 2^. 



W.]\[ed. — Plentiful along the Wootton river, below Wootton bridge. 



W. Med. — -Shores of the Medina above Cowes, frequent. Salt-marshes along 

 the Yar, and near the shore at Norton. Newtown salt-marshes, abundantly. 

 Yarmouth, in abundance, Mr. SnookeH! 



Herb of a pale, dirty, yellowish or brownish green, sometimes with a purplish 

 tinge. Root creeping extensively by long jointed suckers, and emitting at the 

 crown several white, tough, simple or branched fibres, running deep into the mud 

 in all directions. Culms more or less ascending at the base, afterwards erect, 

 slightly incurved or arcuate, from 6 lo 8 or 10 inches high, seldom exceeding a 

 foot or 15 inches at most; round, hollow in the centre, rigid, smooth and leafy, 

 cased for a considerable distance upwards with the blackish, half-decayed and 

 leafless shealhs of the previous season,* and from thence to the summit with the 

 olive-green or purplish ones of the current year. Leaves usually much shorter 

 than the flower-spikes, rarely equalling but never exceeding the latter, quite erect 

 and flat, except near their extremities, where they are involute,f linear-lanceolate, 

 taper-poinled, a little arcuate, tough and rigid, quite glabrous, with thin, while, 

 cartilaginous edges, finely striated, particularly on their upper surface, which is 



* The radical shoots or suckers produced with the flowering culms I imagine 

 survive the winter, losing their old leaves, which fall away at the articulation 

 with their sheaths, and developing new ones towards the period of inflorescence 

 along with the nascent stems, which the withered but persistent sheaths of the 

 first year continue to enclose and protect. 



f Erroneously described by Hooker as involute, which they never are in this 

 species, nor in S. alterniflora till some time after gathering, or when dried with 

 insufficient pressure. 



