69 



found on the sandy sea-shores of our eastern and southern counties, 

 though occasionally occurring inland on dry sandy ground, upon 

 which alone it seems calculated to vegetate. It grows in great 

 ahundance on the Denes at Yarmouth, where it constitutes, perhaps, 

 the predominant vegetation. The root is tufted and fibrous, re- 

 sembling that of an annual grass ; but the bases of the stems and 

 leafy offsets form a cluster of oval or rounded bulb-Uke bodies, 

 which, separating eventually as the foliage withers, or after the 

 flowering season has passed, are drifted in all directions by the 

 wind, and appear to be the chief source of its propagation. Stems 

 erect, six or eight inches in height ; usually bearing two, or at most 

 three very short leaves with long sheaths, the uppermost of which 

 originates below the middle of the stem. Ligule of the upper leaves 

 generally very prominent, and terminating acutely. Panicle often 

 so compact as to appear spike-like, from an inch to an inch and a 

 half in length. Spikelets compact, three- or four-flowered. Glumes 

 nearly equal, three-veined. Flowers copiously webbed at the base. 

 Lower palea usually five- veined ; the dorsal and marginal veins con- 

 spicuous and silky, the intermediate ones obscure, smooth. See 

 the magnified figures : a, the spikelet ; h, a separated flower with its 

 webbed base. 



Perennial. Flowers in April and May. 



Cattle are fond of it as spring pasture ; but the produce is too 

 small and transitory to render it of much value as food. During 

 the greater part of the summer, the bulbs, which have been com- 

 pared to little onions, remain inactive, and are blown about at ran- 

 dom. With the setting-in of the autumnal rains they vegetate, 

 fixing themselves to the sandy soil by long downy radicles, throw- 

 ing up thick tufts of leaves, that wither after the production of a 

 new crop of their viviparous offspring and the ripening of the 



This habit is so striking and peculiar as to confirm the opinion 

 generally entertained by botanists, that the plant before us is one 

 of the most distinctly marked species of its genus, — a fact to which 

 I cannot myself subscribe, deeming it merely an altered form of 

 P alpina, a grass liable to considerable variation in development, 

 and capable of accommodating itself to circumstances that involve 

 no ordinary degree of metamorphosis in general appearance. This 

 conviction on my part has not at all interfered in biasing the 

 above description, as will appear by comparison with those given 

 in other works. See further remarks upon the subject under 

 P. alpina and at the close of this section. P. bulbosa is widely 

 distributed over the continent of Europe, especially in the more 

 temperate and warmer regions; and, judging from its local or, 

 rather, limited disposition m England, and apparent total absence 

 from Scotland and Ireland, is probably a, naturalized wanderer on 



