16 



extermination^ or even its partial removal, being attended with so 

 much danger to the neighbouring country ; over which the sand, 

 once unbound, spreads with a pace scarcely to be interrupted by 

 any means but those which nature herself employs for the purpose, 

 a circumstance that cannot be too earnestly commended to their 

 notice. An act was passed in the reign of Elizabeth, and renewed 

 in that of George II., prohibiting persons from pulling up or 

 otherwise destroying it. 



As the sand becomes settled, and fertilized by the annual growth 

 and decay of this and various other plants which then successively 

 vegetate upon it, the Ammophila gradually yields place to grasses 

 of different character ; migrating, by pushing its underground stems, 

 constantly, toward the looser and more recently deposited sand 

 which it is necessary to fix in its turn. On the sandy shores of the 

 estuary of the Conwy, and near the mouth of the Mersey, on the 

 Cheshire coast, I have several times traced these running stems to 

 the length of twenty or thirty yards, without arriving at their ter- 

 mination. 



Genus 7. PHLEUM. Caf s-tail Grass. 



Gen. Char. Inflorescence dense, spike-like. Spikelets laterally 

 compressed, one-flowered. Glumes two, nearly equal, com- 

 pressed, keeled, truncate with a terminal bristle point, or 

 acuminate; longer than the palese. Palese two, membrana- 

 ceous ; the lower one three- veined. 



The grasses of this genus so much resemble in general aspect 

 those of our fourth, Alopecurus, as to be readily mistaken without a 

 careful examination of the inflorescence ; see remarks on the generic 

 character of the latter, page 5. The species, with one or two un- 

 certain exceptions, are of small agricultural value, being disliked by 

 cattle, and either of rare or very local distribution in the British 

 Islands. 



In several of the species a minute subulate (awl-shaped) scale, 

 accompanying the single perfect flower contained within each pair 

 of glumes, indicates the presence of a second in a rudimentary 

 state. 



The name is from the Greek phleos, formerly appHed to some 

 aquatic grass or grass-like plant,- and adopted by Linnaeus as that 

 of the genus before us probably without any reference to its original 

 signification. 



Phleum pratense. Meadow or Common Cat^s-tail Grass. 

 Timothy Grass. Plate XIII. 



Inflorescence spicate, cylindrical, very long. Glumes oblong 



