107 



new game preserves, though it is usually abundant about woods and 

 thickets in places where the ground has lain long undisturbed. 

 Grrowing under the shade of trees or shrubs, it assumes a somewhat 

 different habit, the panicle being smaller and more compact, and the 

 spikelets downy; in this state it is probably Festuca dumetorum of 

 Linnaeus, a grass regarded by English agricultural writers as of inferior 

 quality, though sheep, hares, and rabbits, do not appear to make any 

 distinction. 



Festuca rubra. Purple Fescue Grass. Creeping Fescue Grass. 

 Plate LXXXIX. 



Panicle oblong, one-sided, more or less spreading. Leaves downy 

 on the upper side ; those of the stem sometimes involute. Root send- 

 ing out scions. 



Festuca rubra, Linnoeus. Smith. E. B. 2056 ; ed. 2. 143. Bdbing- 

 ton, Manual. Festuca duriuscula, var. rubra, Parnell. Festuca 

 ovina, var. rubra. Hooker and Arnott. Festuca ovina, var. sabu- 

 licola. Sand Fescue Grass, Bentham. 



Not unfrequent in dry sandy ground, especially near the sea ; ' more 

 rarely in inland and moist pastures. I believe that the alpine and 

 submountainous habitats mentioned by the earlier English writers refer 

 to purplish-hued states of Festuca duriuscula, or even of F. ovina, as 

 an exception is sometimes made in their descriptions to the creeping 

 habit, the most constant, and perhaps only important, character of 

 distinction between this plant and the preceding. The true Purple 

 Fescue is not a variable grass, unless in size, and attains its greatest 

 development in the loose sand that accumxilates on the sea-shore, which 

 it contributes to bind and fix. The scions, or creeping stems, often 

 extend to a considerable length, terminating in erect shoots with dis- 

 tichous leaves. The flowering stems occasionally rise to the height of 

 two feet, being more or less unequally angular, and bearing four or 

 five fiat, or, rarely, partly involute leaves, which are downy on their 

 upper side. The panicle has almost universally a reddish-purple hue, 

 and the spikelets are larger than those of F. duriuscula. In other 

 respects it so nearly approaches the latter, that, under existing views 

 concerning specific distinction, their separation is based upon very 

 equivocal grounds. 



Perennial. Flowers in June and July. 



As all stoloniferous grasses are considered to be impoverishing to 

 the soil, the Creeping Fescue may be left by the farmer where Nature 

 requires it for her own purposes. In regard to nutritive properties, it 

 is said to be very inferior to all the grasses of this section. 



The subjects of the five foregoing figures being considered by some 

 botanists as forms of the same specific type, and all of them unques- 



