52 



grass, has been recommended here as an early-flowering species 

 likely to prove advantageous; but Mr. Sinclair states that it is 

 tender, the spring produce of herbage inconsiderable, and that its 

 powerful creeping roots render it altogether unfit for agricultural 

 purposes. 



The generic name is altered from the Greek olkos, applied to some 

 plant, a supposed grass, which was considered to have the property 

 of extracting thorns from the flesh, and so termed from the verb 

 elko, to draw out. The original signification has no immediate 

 reference to the grasses before us. 



The upper flower is very often perfect and fertile, especially in 

 H. mollis, and the rudiment of the ovary is almost universally 

 present, circumstances tending to show that its more frequent 

 deficiency is the result of accident. 



The copiously branched, variegated or silvery inflorescence, and 

 broad, downy, almost silky foliage, render these conspicuous among 

 our native grasses ; few of which equal them in beauty. 



HoLcus MOLLIS. Creeping Soft Grass. Plate XLV. 



Panicle erect ; its branches spreading when in flower. Upper 

 glume somewhat acuminate. Awn of the upper flower knee-bent, 

 rough throughout, extending beyond the glumes. Knots of the 

 stem woolly. Creeping at the root. 



Holcus mollis, Linnceus. E. B. 1170; ed. 2. 112. Generally 

 adopted. 



Not unfrequent, or even common, in woods and under hedges, 

 to which situations it is usually confined ; unless in light sandy 

 soils, where it intrudes on the pastures and corn-fields, constituting 

 in the latter one of the most troublesome weeds, and at the same 

 time the most difficult to eradicate, in consequence of its rapid 

 growth and widely creeping habit. Stems one to two feet high, 

 conspicuously hairy or woolly at the joints. Leaves rather broad, 

 soft to the touch, owing to the presence of a fine, but nearly invisible 

 down ; their sheaths more or less inflated. Panicle pale, pyramidal, 

 rather distantly branched, two to five inches in length, and from an 

 inch and a half to two inches or more in breadth at the base. 

 Glumes nearly smooth, often tinged with purple; the upper one 

 acuminated. Upper flower supported on a short stalk (see the mag- 

 nified figure b), generally barren, containing stamens only with the 

 imperfect rudiment of an ovary ; bearing a sharply-bent awn on the 

 back of the lower palea. Lower flower sometimes, but very rarely, 

 awned. 



Perennial. Flowers in July and August. 



This is one of the grasses called couch and wick, quicken or squitch, 

 in different parts of England. The creeping root-stems or stoloncs. 



