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A single species, common to the sandy pastures of southern and 

 western Europe, especially toward the Atlantic and Mediterranean 

 coasts, constitutes this genus. Named by Sir J. E. Smith after 

 Mr. M. Knapp, an English botanist and author of a work on grasses. 

 It is variously entitled by British and foreign writers. 



Knappia agkostidea. Dwarf Knappia. Plate CXXXIX. 



Knappia agrostidea. Smith. E. B. 1127 ; ed. 2. 187. Hooker and 

 Arnott. Bahington. Parnell. Chamagrostis minima, Borkhausen. 

 Lindley. Bentham. Mibora verna, Beauvois. Sturmia minima, 

 Hoppe. Agrostis minima, Linnaeus. 



One of the smallest of the grass family, being seldom more than 

 about two inches in height. As a British species it may be regarded 

 as a rarity, being chiefly confined to the south-west shores of Anglesea, 

 and those of the Channel Islands. It grows in a tufted form, sending 

 up several smooth, slender, thread-like stems from the same root. 

 Leaves short, linear, rather obtuse, rough ; their sheaths about equal 

 to them in length, thin, whitish, inflated. Ligule obtuse, crenate, 

 stem-clasping. Inflorescence from a quarter of an inch to nearly an 

 inch in length. Spikelets in two rows on opposite sides of the rachis, 

 but inclining to one side, shortly pedicellate, sufficiently so to render 

 the inflorescence rather racemose than spicate, one-flowered ; from four 

 or five to ten on each apparent spike. Grlumes two, equal, smooth, 

 dorsally compressed, truncate, green down the back, but having the 

 sides more or less tinged with purple, longer than the included flower. 

 Palea mostly solitary, but sometimes including at its base the opposite 

 rudiment of a second, hairy, obtuse, and jagged at the apex, whitish, 

 very thin and delicate. 



Annual. Flowers in March and April, ripening its seed, and dying 

 off about the end of May, or the first week in June. Like many 

 other short-lived annual plants that flower early in the spring, a second 

 crop may occasionally be met with in the autumn. 



Genus 47. SPAKTINA. Cord Grass. 



Gen. Char. Inflorescence a more or less compound spike ; partial 

 spikes erect. Spikelets laterally compressed, sessile, one-flowered, 

 arranged alternately in two rows on one side of the zigzag, partial 

 racliis. Glumes two, very unequal, lanceolate, compressed. 

 Palese two, unequal, lanceolate-acuminate, compressed. Styles 

 elongated, united half-way up. Stigmas plumose. 



The genus is a small one, consisting of eight or ten species, chiefly 

 American and western European, growing in muddy salt marshes, and 

 nbout the estuaries of rivers. They are harsh, unpalatable grasses, 



