119 



seen English specimens, but consider its claim to rank as a separate 

 SLr'V" '^^ °^.ff<^^ itself. As a merely accXnta 

 rS^^nVLrolTSe*" ' '''-' ^"^""^ ""'"^ ^~ I* ^ 



Bromus maximtjs. Great Brome Grass. Plate CI. 



Panicle erect, lax, at length nodding. Spikelets lanceolate, downy ■ 

 their stalks elongated after flowering. Flowers remote, sub-cylin- 

 dncal, about half the length of the awn. Lower palea seven- veined 

 -Lieaves downy on both sides. 



Bromus maximus, Desfontaines. Bahington. E. B. Supp. 2820 

 Generally adopted. 



A_ native of sandy places near the sea, around the basin of the 

 Mediterranean, from which it seems to have originally extended north- 

 ward along the Atlantic shores of Spain and France to the Channel 

 Islands, where Mr. Babington first directed to it the attention of 

 British botanists, as growing on the sands of St. Aubin's Bay, the 

 Grfeve d'Azette, the Quenvais, and other places in Jersey. It is an 

 elegant grass, sending up erect stems, in tufts, to the height only of one 

 or two feet, notwithstanding the name maximus, which, as bestowed by 

 the author of the 'Flora Atlantica,' probably refers rather to the 

 African than to the European stature and habit of the plant. The 

 stems are downy at the upper part above the leaf-sheaths, which are 

 Striated, and more or less hairy. The leaves, downy on both sides are 

 flat, linear-acute. The panicle is usually simple, but occasionally one 

 or two of the lower branches are divided ; it is at first erect but as 

 the flowering season advances, becomes slightly curved forward at'the 

 upper part, nodding rather than drooping. The rachis and peduncles 

 are downy, but not rough. Spikelets expanding, lanceolate, including 

 the awns often between three and four inches long. Glumes so much 

 attenuated as almost to appear awned, the upper one larger five- 

 veined. Outer palea with seven prominent, rough, equi-distant veins 

 membranaceous, and glossy on the margins ; its awn very variable in 

 length, but usually exceeding it two or three times. Inner palea much 

 shorter than the outer. Stamens frequently only two. 

 Annual. Flowers in June and July. 



Should this grass be considered to approach Bromus dicmdrus, the 

 distinction between them may be said to consist in the more lax form 

 of inflorescence in ike present, the greater proportionate length of the 

 awns, the inequality of the palese, and the equi-distant arrangement 

 and prominence of the seven veins of the outer one. The resemblance 

 between it and B. sterilis is much less easily overcome, and I fear that 

 the difference between roughness and downiness of the rachis and 

 peduncles, and the proportionate lengths of the lowermost flower of a 

 spikelet and the larger glume, will not much assist our decision in the 

 matter. Dr. Parnell has endeavoured to obviate the difficulty by 



