TWO GRASSES NEW TO THE CHANNEL 

 ISLANDS. 



BY C. R. P. ANDREWS, M.A. 



(Reproduced by permission from the Journal of Botany, Vol. 38, Feb. 1900.) 



Two grasses have been found in Alderney and Guernsey 

 during the last year, of which one has not previously been 

 recorded within the limits of the British Flora, while the 

 other has only been noted once or twice as an undoubted 

 introduction. Judging from the localities in which they 

 grew, and from a comparison of their continental distribution, 

 there is little doubt that they may both be considered as 

 native plants. 



The obvious objection which meets this statement at the 

 outset is that numbers of the best British botanists have 

 visited these islands since Babington's Primitive Flora 

 Samicce in 1839 called attention to their great botanical 

 interest, and that, if the plants were really native, they would 

 have been discovered before. The objection can, I think, be 

 satisfactorily answered in both cases. One of the two, 

 Phalaris minor, Retz, so closely resembles Phalaris canarien- 

 sis, L., that it has been passed over without interest as a 

 casual. The probability of this is increased by the fact that 

 P. canariensis is found fairly frequently in both Guernsey 

 and Alderney. In the case of the other plant, Milium 

 scabrum, Merl., the habitat and the time of flowering will 

 explain its neglect. It grows on the lower slopes of the 

 southern cliffs in an unfrequented part, and flowers from mid- 

 April to May. Botanists, as a rule, arrive in June or later ; 

 the spring plants on the southern face of the cliffs soon dry 

 up in these sunny islands and disappear. These particular 

 cliffs are visited in the winter for Ophiof/lossnm hcsitanicum, 

 but all traces of the little fern have gone before M. scabrum is 

 in flower. The plants which flower with it grow in equal or 

 greater profusion in the more easily accessible lowlands, and 



