ENGLISH BOTANY, 
On dry banks, rocks, and wall-tops, and in sandy pastures. Rather 
common, and generally distributed. 
' / ' . " ■ ' ' land. Annual. Early Summer. 
with few or numerous stems 1 to 8 
in „ or sometimes decumbent. Leaves -| to 
1^ iru.il iuii;i. tue n|.p. rmo?r leaf i to i inch long; panicle ito 1^ inch 
long, always contracted. Spikelets ^inch long, pale green. Glumes 
green with broad white scarious margins, acute, rough on the keel. 
Lower pale ultimately hard, rough with small points, brown. 
In the usual state of this plant, the panicle is continuous, but in 
luxuriant forms it is sometimes interrupted; each of the panicle- 
branches bears rarely more than 3 spikelets, arranged in a racemose 
manner. 
When in flower it cannot be confounded with any other British 
grass, but in its earlier stage it bears a striking resemblance to 
starved specimens of A. caryophyllea, before the panicle of the latter 
opens; and as A. caryophyllea is from a fortnight to three weeks 
later in flowering than A. prascox, it is possible that some of the 
records of A. praecox belong to A. caryophyllea. My own experience 
is that though A. pnecox is as widely distributed as A. caryophyllea, 
it is less abundant. 
Early Hair- Grass. 
Trench, Canche preeose. German, Fri'Mp^V.j^r mder. 
GENUS XXV.— AY m^K. Linn. 
Spikelets more or less distinctly stalked, arranged in a loose open or 
compact panicle, which is rarely reduced to a racemose or very rarely 
to a compact spikelike panicle, at first cylindrical, afterwards slightly 
laterally compressed, open during flowering, each containing 2 to 8 
florets, the lower one sometimes male, the upper one often imperfect or 
even reduced to a terminal ^talklike rudiment. Glumes 2, equal as long 
as or longer than the florets, or unequal, and then commonly shorter than 
the florets, usually keeled, not awned, subherbaceous or subscariotis. 
Pales 2, unequal, the lower one bifid or bicuspidate at the apex, with 
a bent and twiste<l dorsal awn from about the middle (at least in some 
of the lower florets ), ultimately parchment-like, coriaceous or meml>ra- 
nous. Upper pale 2-toothed. rarely entire, 2-ribbed, membranous. 
LoditMiles 2, entire or bilobed. Stamens ?k rarely 2. Stigmas 2, ter- 
minal, sessile or sub>es>ile, plumose, protruded at the sides of the 
floret, near the basal margins of the pales, or always included within 
