544 THE GRASS FAMILY. _ [Arundo. 
usually 5 or 6 feet high, but sometimes twice as much, with a long, creep - 
ing rootstock, and numerous long leaves, often an inch broad, all the way 
up the stem. Panicle from a few inches to a foot long, with numerous 
branches, more or less drooping, of a purplish-brown colour. Spikelets 
very numerous, narrow, above 6 inches long. Outermost glume lanceolate, 
concave, about 13 lines long, and empty; the second narrower, and twice 
that length ; the third still longer, and also empty, or with 1 or 2 stamens 
only ; and all 3 without hairs outside. Above are 2 or 3 flowering glumes 
about the same length, but narrower, ending in an almost awn-like point, 
and surrounded by silky hairs. which lengthen much as the seed ripens, 
giving the panicle a beautiful silvery appearance. Phragmites communis , 
Trin. 
In wet ditches, marshes, and shallow waters, almost all over the world, 
from the tropics to the Arctic Zone. Common in Britain. Fl. end of 
summer, and autumn. 
Cuass III. CRYPTOGAMS. 
No real flowers, that is, neither stamens, nor pistils, nor 
true seeds, the fructification consisting of minute, often highly 
microscopic granules, called Spores, variously enclosed in sessile 
or stalked Spore-cases (Sporangia) often called capsules, or 
imbedded within the substance of the plant, the spore-cases 
themselves sometimes so small as to be scarcely visible without 
the aid of a microscope. 
The few British Cryptogams which are included in the present Volume 
have all of them roots, and stems or rootstocks asin flowering plants, and in 
a few the leaves are somewhat similar, but in most the leaves are more or * 
less converted into fruiting branches, bearing the fructification on their 
surface, base, or edges, and are therefore now generally distinguished from 
true leaves by the name of fronds. In the remaining families of Crypto- 
gams, called Cellular, their is either no distinct stem, or the stem does not 
contain any fibrous or vascular tissue. None of these can be readily deter- 
mined without the use of high magnifying powers, and the assistance of 
carefully executed plates. However great, therefore, may be the interest 
attached to them, they are beyond the scope of the present Flora; and the 
amateur of British Botany, desirous of entering into their study, is referred 
to the works of Hooker, Wilson, Harvey, Berkeley, and others, devoted 
each to particular families. These Cellular Cryptogams are comprised in 
the six following families. : 
CHARACEH. Fresh-water plants, with slender stems and whorled 
branches, usually transparent, but sometimes coated with carbonate of 
lime; their fructification consists of two kinds of minute bodies of very 
singular structure, placed in the axils of the branches. 
Mossres. Stem and leaves distinct, but without vessels. Spores con- 
tained in little globular or urn-shaped spore-cases, which are usually 
pedicellate, and open by the falling off of a lid at the top. 
