Ill] VEGETATIVE CHARACTERS 41 



Melica nutans, L. (Mountain Melick). Ligule longer, 

 and without the awl-shaped peg. Only in Scotland and 

 W. of England. 



Both are shade grasses of no agricultural value. 

 M. uniflora, with its quadrangular shoots and anti-ligular peg, 

 cannot be confounded with any other grass. 



(2) Sections of sheathed leaves more or less acutely two- 

 edged, owing to the keels of the compressed equitant 



(i) Shoots broad and fan-like, m/uch compressed, with old 

 hrown leaf-sheaths heloio, sometimes hurst hy the 

 intra-vaginal branches: leaf ridgeless, with prominent 

 keel. No undergromid stolons. 



Dactylis glomerata, L. (Cock's-foot). An early and 

 quick -growing pasture-grass, which forms much aftermath. 

 Grows on all soils. Often coarse. Coarse tussocks, and 

 harsh, with broad thick succulent bluish-green leaves. 



Section of sheathed leaves acutely naviculate. Promi- 

 nent obtuse ligule, torn above. Lamina long, rough, acute, 

 with white lines if held up, and serrulate edges. No 

 flanking lines'. No stolons (Fig. 6). 



There is a cultivated variety of Dactylis with broad opaque white 

 stripes down the leaves : these are totally different from the trans- 

 lucent white stripes seen on holding the wild form, or Aira ccespitosa, 

 up to the light. Another cultivated "ribbon-grass" — Digraphis — 

 has round shoots, split sheaths, and a different habit, and the same 

 applies to its wild form. 



Probably the only serious chances of confusion with Dactylis are 

 between it and Poa prate'iisis, which also has flattened shoots and 

 closed sheath ; but in the latter the section of the shoot is elliptical 

 — not naviculate, — the keel is far less prominent, and the ligule 



1 The pale flanking lines seen in many grasses on each side of the 

 mid-rib are the series of motor-cells referred to on p. 25. 



