MOUNTAINS 49 
chiefly near the coast; Channel Islands, Culms 6-12 inches. 
Leaves narrow, more or,less hairy. Panicle erect, the few branches 
rather close, scarcely divided, and shorter, than the spikelets. 
Spikelets ?-17 inch long, wedge-shaped, 8- to 10-flowered ; flower- 
ing glumes not imbricated, with a slender subterminal awn about 
their own length, and ultimately curved; stamens usually two. 
Annual or biennial, flowering close of June. Var. B. rigtdus has 
a dense panicle, the rachis, pedicels and glumes downy. 
Panicum glabrum, the Smooth Finger-grass, occurs in sandy 
places in S.E. England, but is extremely rare. It is closely 
allied to P. sanguznale. Culms 6 inches, prostrate or decumbent ; 
leaves and sheaths glabrous. Culms usually bearing three digi- 
tate spikes about 13 inch in length. Spikelets 4, inch long, on one 
side of the rachis, in pairs ; one spikelet sessile, the other pedicelled ; 
dorsally compressed, downy, purplish, each containing one flower 
and a third empty glume; lowest empty glume minute or absent. 
Annual, flowering in July, August. 
Our last is the alpine group of grasses, all, with the exception of 
fierochloe boreaits, restricted to high mountains. 
4 Growing in crevices and on ledges of rock, and among rocky 
ebris :— 
Poa alpina, the Alpine Meadow-grass, is the commonest of our 
mountain grasses, abundant in the Highlands ; also found on the 
Cumbrian mountains and Snowdon ; West of Ireland. The root- 
stock is stout, shortly creeping. Culms about a foot high, rather 
wiry, the base of each thickly clothed with decayed leaf-sheaths and 
thus having a bulbous appearance by which the species can be un- 
mistakably distinguished from all its allies. Leaves broadly 
linear, thick, firm, keeled, abruptly pointed and hooded, slightly 
glaucous ; ligule very prominent. Panicle erect, the branches 
usually in pairs, spreading. Spikelets + inch, usually purplish, 4- 
or 5-flowered ; glumes compressed, keeled and awnless, as in all 
species of Poa; the flowering ones free, ze. not webbed, with 
three of the five faint nerves silky-hairy. Perennial, flowering in 
June, July ; commonly viviparous. 
Deschampsia alpina, the Alpine Hair-grass, is plentiful on the 
Braemar mountains, Lochnagar, etc.; it is regarded by some as a 
sub-species or variety of D. cespitosa, from which it differs in the 
following characters : leaves short, culms 6-12 inches; panicle 
branches quite smooth. Spikelets nearly inch long ; awn inserted 
above the middle of the flowering glume. Usually viviparous. 
Perennial, flowering late summer and autumn. 
Poa laxa, the Wavy Meadow-grass, is a rare native of the loftier 
mountains of Inverness and Aberdeen, as Ben Nevis and Loch- 
nagar. The rootstock is rather slender, densely tufted, not creep- 
ing ; leaves thin, flaccid, narrowly linear, channelled, hooded at 
the tip ; ligule very prominent, lacerate. Culms 6-9 inches, weak 
and bending. Panicle lax, slightly drooping, the lower branches 
generally paired, closed in fruit. Spikelets 3-flowered ; flowering 
H. G. E 
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