Festuca. | LXXXIX. GRAMINEZ. 535 
from about 2 to 4 or 5 feet in height, either tufted or with a shortly 
creeping rootstock. Leaves flat, but varying much in breadth. Panicle 
sometimes reduced to a simple spike, with almost sessile, distant 
spikelets, more frequently branched, but always erect and narrow, from 
5 or 6 inches to near a foot long. Spikelets 6 lines to near an inch 
long, containing from 5 to 10 or even more flowers. Flowering glumes, 
when the panicle is nearly simple, rather broad, scarious at the edge, 
scarcely pointed, and distinctly 5-ribbed; but the more the panicle 
is- branched the narrower and more pointed are the glumes, with 
less distinct ribs, and sometimes with a distinct but exceedingly short 
awn. 
In meadows and moist pastures, on banks and riversides, throughout 
Europe and temperate Asia, except the extreme north. Common in 
Britain. Fl. summer, rather early. The most marked British forms, 
often considered as species, are the following :— 
a. Ff. loliacea, Curt. Spikelets almost sessile, in a simple spike. Grows 
~ with the common form, always passing gradually into it. 
b. F. pratensis, Huds. Panicle slightly branched but close. In 
meadows and pastures. 
c. F. arundinacea, Schreb. A taller, often reed-like plant, with 
broader leaves, the panicle more branched and spreading. On banks 
of rivers, and in’wet places, especially near the sea. 
3. EF. sylvatica, Vill. (fig. 1228). Reed F.—A tall, reed-like perennial, 
with rather broad, flat leaves, and a rather compact panicle, 4 to 6 
inches long. Spikelets numerous, smaller even than in F. ovina, seldom 
containing more than 4 or 5 flowers. Outer glumes much narrower 
than in the two preceding species, and often almost subulate. Flower- 
ing glumes about 2 lines long, tapering into a fine point, but not 
distinctly awned. JF. calamaria, Sm. 
In mountain woods, in central Europe, from central France and 
northern Italy to southern Scandinavia, and eastward to the Russian 
frontier. Thinly scattered over Great Britain and Ireland, most pre- 
valent in northern England, but unknown in the north of Scotland. 
Fl, summer. 
4, F. Myurus, Linn. (fig. 1229). Rat’s-tail F.—A tufted annual, 
usually about a foot high. Leaves narrow and convolute as in F. ovina. 
__ Panicle slender and 1-sided, 2 to 6 inches long, contracted, sometimes 
spike-like or even reduced to asimple spike; the branches always short 
and erect. Spikelets of the size of those of F. ovina, but the glumes 
narrower, the outer ones very unequal, the flowering ones ending in an 
awn at least as long as themselves. Vulpia Mywrus, Gmel. 
In waste places, on walls, roadsides, &c., in central and southern 
Europe, extending eastward to the Caucasus and northward into 
southern Scandinavia. In Britain, rather frequent in England and 
Ireland, less so in Scotland. J. carly summer. There are two marked 
varieties often considered as species, the true F. Myurus (including 
F. ambigua, Le Gall.), with a panicle of about 3 inches, the flowering 
glumes nearly as long as their awn, the lowest empty olume about 2 
lines long, the second at least 3 lines, and both very pointed; and 
F. bromoides, Sm. (scvuroides, Roth.), with a panicle much longer and 
more slender, the flowering glumes smaller, thinner, and much shorter 
than their awns, the outermost empty glume not 1 line long, the second 
