Perennial. Flowers from April to June. The seed ripens in 

 June and July, but remains long after within the husk : it appears 

 peculiarly liable to the attacks of certain insects, a circumstance 

 unfavourable to its collection where any large quantity is required. 



Alopecurus alpinus. Alpine Fox-tail Grass. Plate V. 



Stem erect, smooth. Inflorescence spicate, ovate or oblong, 

 Glumes ovate, abruptly pointed, downy, connected at the base. 

 Awn longer than the palea, arising from its middle. 



Alopecurus alpinus. Smith. E. B. 1126; ed. 2. 86. Generally 

 adopted. 



Only admitted into the European flora as a native of Scotland, 

 where it is found at an elevation of between 2500 and 3500 feet. 

 It is recorded as being plentiful in North America and Spitzbergen, 

 but in its British habitats, about Loch-na-gaar, in Aberdeenshire, 

 Ben Lawers, and the Clova district, it may be regarded as among 

 our botanical rarities. Rooting in hollows and the crevices of 

 rocks about rills and waterfalls, it sends out occasionally a few 

 lateral creeping shoots, that root as they extend. The flowering 

 stems are at first decumbent, but assume an erect position beyond 

 the first or second joint, rising to the height of six inches or a foot. 

 Notwithstanding the diff'erence in the form of the glumes and in 

 the attachment of the awn, there is a very close resemblance be- 

 tween this grass and some stunted specimens of A. pratensis, 

 which it approximates in the inflated appearance of the uppermost 

 leaf-sheath, the usually shorter and broader form of the leaf itself, 

 and the obtuseness of the ligule. The assumed differential cha- 

 racters upon which the species is founded, may be traced by com- 

 parison of the magnified figures of the flowers of the present with 

 those of the preceding, Plate IV., the initial letters of the two 

 corresponding. 



Perennial. Flowers in July and August. 



Alopecurus agrestis. Slender Fox-tail Grass. Plate VI. 



Stem erect, scabrous. Inflorescence spicate, cylindrical, tapering, 

 . slender. Glumes lanceolate, acute, united half-way, nearly smooth. 

 Awn twice the length of the palea, arising from a little above the 



Alopecurus agrestis, Linrums. E. B. 848 ; ed. 2. 87. Generally 

 adopted. 



This grass, known in many parts of the country by the name of 

 Black Bent, is of frequent occurrence on road-sides and waste 



