38 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
shining, glabrous, scabrous on the keel. Lower pale hairy or pube- 
scent, specially towards the margins in the apical half. Awn from 
about one-fourth below the apex of the pale, nearly as long as the 
glumes, or even exceeding them, sometimes absent. 
In cornfields, dry pastures, roadsides, and waste places. Local 
Confined to the south of England, reaching north to Glamorgj 
perhaps Flint), Warwick, and Xorfolk. 
England. Annual. Summer, Autumn. 
Stems numerous, unequal, 3 to 18 inches high, geniculate below, 
then erect or ascending, simple, or sometimes branched from the 
lower knots, leafy. Leaves 1 to 3 inches long by i to i inch broad, 
pale green, with numerous slightly raised rough ribs and rough 
margms; sheaths smooth, the uppermost one slightly swollen, loncrer 
than its leaf ; ligule lanceolate, longer than broad, laciniate. Panide 
1 to 4 inches long, close and lobed before and after flowering but 
^\^th the branches spreading while the flowers are expanded, pale 
p-een and glistening until after flowering, afterwards dull straw- 
colour. Panicle branches in half whorls, short, some of them bearinc 
spikelets down to the base, others bare for about half their length 
Spikeiets J- to } inch long. Glumes with the swollen base polished 
and ultimately subcoriaceous. Pales scarcely extending beyond tht 
swollen part of the glumes, almost always -with a long twisted awn 
which reaches the apex of the glumes or extends a little wav bevond 
it. Anthers pale yellow. 
Aimed Nilgrass. 
Sir J. E. Smith says of tin., "An annual grass, growing (though rare) in sxxch 
fields near the sea as are occasionally overflowed." It is, however, not confined to 
the coast, as it occurs in Surrey. 
It is recorded by Mr. Edwin Lees as having been gathered in the Severn Valley 
(see " Botany of Worcester," p. 61). In this position it may be said to form a part 
of the sea-side flora which still Kngers in the valley of the Severn, attesting its former 
marine condition, when in fact this line of country justified the name of the " Straits 
of Malvern," as given to it by Sir R. Morchison. 
It is easily distinguished from any other British grass by the peculiar glossy tumid 
appeai-ance at the base of the glumes. It is by no means a common grass, and is not 
known to be of any agricultural value. 
GENUS XFJ.-L A G U R U S. Linn. 
^ Spikelets suh>e>.sile. arranged in a very dense ovate-ovoid or sub- 
globose spikelike panicle, laterally compressed, open during floweriiur 
tj;icli containing a single perfect floret, %vith the stalklike rudiment of 
:i <i'Ci>nd one above it. Glumes 2, equal, longer than the floret, 
bluiith- keeled, gradually acuminated into a long terminal planelike 
