44 PEEMANENT AND TEMPOEAEY PASTUEES. 



pratensis growing alongside ; and there is no reason to doubt 

 tliat true Festuca pratensis sown in soil which loliacea affects 

 would in three or four years produce the loliacea peculiarities. 

 Mr. Baker, of Kew, fully confirms, I think, the inference drawn 

 from Professor Buckman's experiment when he says : ^Loliacea 

 is a mere variety of prateiisis. My friend Mr. Watson experi- 

 mented on loliacea in garden soil, and it simply grew into 

 pratensis.' Sinclair mentions an idea which was started at the 

 beginning of the century, that Festuca loliacea was a mule or 

 cross between Eye Grass and Festuca fluitans, or between Rye 

 Grass and Festuca pratensis. He states the reasons why such 

 an opinion was groundless, and Professor Buckman's and Mr. 

 Watson's experiments seem to me to prove the accuracy of 

 Sinclair's conclusions. Some eminent botanists still hold the 

 opinion that Festuca loliacea is a cross between Festuca pratensis 

 and Perennial Eye Grass. But the experiments I have mentioned, 

 where loliacea plants transplanted to garden soil have reverted 

 to the true pratensis type, appear to render the theory of cross- 

 fertilisation unnecessary in order to account for a change in the 

 character of the plants. 



It is very difficult to obtain a true and pure sample of 

 Festuca loliacea, and as on land which favours its growth Festuca 

 pratensis will often in three or four years develope the chief 

 characteristics of the former, I do not consider the high cost 

 of loliacea seed a necessary outlay, admirable as the plant is on 

 those soils where it will remain constant. 



Sinclair found that this grass formed the principal part of 

 the herbage in the meadows bordering the Trent, but he alluded 

 to the difficulty of obtaining seed at that time, and went so far as 

 to express the opinion that the plant could only be cultivated by 

 root-division ; and Curtis remarks : ' The seeds of this grass being 

 in the same predicament as those of Festuca elatior, the plant can 

 only be propagated in the same way.' 



Glyceria fluitans, or Floating Sweet Grass, somewhat re- 

 sembles Festuca loliacea in its flowering culms, but the two 



