ENGLISH BOTANY. 
referring to the figure of " Festuca fluitans " in Curtis' Flora Lon- 
donensis, fiisc. i. tab. 18, as " a good plate " of his G. pedicellata. 
Floating Meadoiv- Grass. 
French, Ghjcerie aquatiqu-e. Grerman, Fluthende Scliwaden. 
The Floating Meadow- Grasses are very variable. They have all, however, one 
character in common, namely, that from their situations they are extremely liahle to 
hecome ergotised ; and we have reason to think that the greediness with which cattle 
eat them, is, when in this state, not without much danger, especially to gravid 
In several parts of Germany this grass is cultivated for its seeds, which form the 
it is said are fond of the seeds, i 
Sttb-Species II. — Glyceria plicata. Fries. 
Plate MDCCLIII. 
Eeich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. I. Tab. CLIIL Fig. 381. 
Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 183. 
G. fluitans, var. /3, Booh. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 548. 
Sheaths sulcate. Panicle rather broad and compound, or slender and 
subracemose. Rachis scabrous towards the apex. Panicle -branches 2 to 
5 at the lower nodes of the rachis, usually adpressed during flowering 
and diverging in fruit, 1 of those at each of the lower nodes longer 
than the others, usually greatly so, and bearing several racemosely 
arranged spikelets, or compound and bearing branches with racemosely 
arranged spikelets, the other branches vnth a single spikelet, or (rarely) 
one of them with 2 or 3 spikelets. Spikelets oblong-linear, obtuse, with 
4 to 12 florets inserted on the axis at distances about equal to their 
breadth. Lower pale (in profile) 3 or 4 times as long as broad, trun- 
cateerose, subobtuse, broadly scarious at the apex. Anthers about 
tmce as long as broad. Caryops broadly elliptical. 
Var. a, genuina. 
Panicle greatly compound, with the branches diverging in fruit in 
threes or fives at the lower nodes. Spikelets aU conspicuously stalked. 
Var. 3, suhspicata. Pamell. 
Panicle simple, or nearly so, with short adpressed branches in pairs 
at the lower ncKies. Lateral and solitary spikelets subsessile. 
In ditches, in wet places, apparently rather rare, but doubtless often 
passed over as G. eu-fluitans. I have no specimens from further north 
