Spartina.] GKAiiiNEiE. 626 



ploughed into deep fuiTows, with broader and whitish cartilaginous ridges be- 

 tweeu them, giving this side of the leaf a pale glaucous colour, the under being 

 of a yellow or almost olive-green : the base of each leaf narrows by a short but 

 easy taper into ihe long, smooth, tight and striated sAeafA, which is closed all 

 around the culm nearly to the summit, its point of junction with the leaf being 

 marked by a faintly projecting fillet or annular articulation, at which the leaf 

 separates in process of time by natural decay, or may be easily detached, leaving 

 behind the truncate and still investing shealh. Ligule extremely short, a mere 

 row of unequal bristly hairs. Spike terminal, 3 or 4 inches long, of 2 or some- 

 times 3, rarely 4, close erect branches, of unequal length ; spikeleis numerous, 

 linear, hairy, J an inch in length, inserted unilaterally and alternately along two 

 faces of the compressed triangular rachis, which is grooved for their partial recep- 

 tion, its extremity produced into a straight point extending hut little beyond the 

 highest or ultimate spikelet of each branch. Glumes chaffy, much compressed 

 and very unequal; the inferior a.nd outer scarcely frds the length of the inner, 

 extremely narrow, subulate and acute, ribless ; superior and inner glume sealed 

 on a thick green base or pedicel, from the side of which, a little lower down, the 

 outer glume arises; linear, incurved, 2-ribbed above the back, clothed with long, 

 appressed, silky hairs, and more or less fringed with bristly ones on the dorsal 

 ridge, its apex sometimes torn but not emarginale, very acuminate. Palea 

 much compressed, nearly equal, linear and chaffy; upper and inner valve 

 rather longer than the other, quite glabrous, faintly 2-ribbbed down the 

 centre,* with a fold inwards of the valve between them, its point very acute 

 and bifid; lower and outer valve bluntish and entire at the apex, slightly 

 hairy, especially above, with a single green dorsal rib, armed its own lengthwiih 

 a row of long, slender, almost appressed spines. Anthers pale buff-colour. Ova- 

 rium oblong, tapering into the very long closely cohering styles, that terminate 

 in yellowish white, simple and feathery stigmas. Scale none. 



This rank-smelling grassf is quite destitute of beauty ; nor does it recommend 

 itself by any known use, unless by its creeping and fibrous roots serving to conso- 

 lidate the soft fluctuating soil on which it grows, and affording a safe, if not a 

 dry, footing over the di'eary waste of flat salt-marsh. In its geographical distri- 

 bution the Twin-spiked Cord-grass is confined to the South and centre of Europe, 

 termiflating both in Britain and on the Continent below 53° of latitude, and is 

 principally confined to the East and South-east coast of England, ranging to 

 neither Scotland nor Ireland. Though found sparingly in Devonshire (ex herb. 

 Smith), it seems to be everywhere scarce to the westward of this island, but ex- 

 tends southward into Africa as far at least as Mogador, from whence I have seen 

 specimens. Our other British species, S. altemijlora, Lois., discovered by my- 

 self, in 1836, growing abundantly at Southampton, and within thirteen miles of 

 our shores, does not occur on this side of the Solent. 



* These ribs, being extremely slender and pellucid, are only to be seen dis- 

 tinctly in certain lights. 



% The fcetid odour of our two British species of Spartina seems common to the 

 genus, for Gronovius, in his ' Flora Virginica,' mentions the rancid odour of S. 

 cynosuroides, an American species, confused by Linnaeus with our S. stricta, to 

 which the description in the ' Species Plantarum ' scarcely applies, though the 

 true synonym of Ray is appended. 



4 L 



