120 
ENGLISH BOTANY. 
solitary, or more rarely 2 to 5, erect, slightly curved throughout, 
usually sharjily curved or geniculate at the base, rather slender, rigid, 
smooth, intensely . glaucous ; the uppermost knot one-fifth to one- 
sixth above the base. Leaves narrowly linear, tapering, gradually 
pointed and slightly hooded at the apex, intensely glaucous ; sheaths 
nearly smooth, acutely ancipitate, the uppermost one a little longer 
than its leaf; ligule about thrice as broad as long, truncate. Panicle 
erect, distichously unilateral, triangular in flower, rhombic or oblong in 
fruit ; panicle-branches 1 to 3 at the lower nodes of the rachis, but 
generally 2, rigid, spreading in flower, ascending or erect in fruit, 
bare of spikelets and unbranched at the base for from one-half to two- 
thirds of their length, scabrous. Spikelets elliptical, 2- to 6 -flowered, 
usually 2- or 3-flowered. Glumes acuminate, the larger one as long 
as or very little shorter than the first floret. Florets not connected at 
the base by arachnoid hairs. Lower pale acute or subacute, dark 
purple more or less tinged with glaucous-green, reddish-brown towards 
the apex, with narrow white scarious margins. 
On damp ledges of rock on high mountains, rare, and very local. 
Snowdon, Carnarvon ( ?) ; Canlochen Glen, and Glen Isla, Forfar; Stuich- 
an-lochan and rocks on the north-west side of Ben Lawers, Perthshire. 
England ( ?), Scotland. Perennial. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Eootstock often an inch or more in length, slender. Stems 4 inches 
to 1 foot high, solitary or few together, from the apex t)f the root- 
stock. Leaves ^ to 2 inches long, by -j'^ to inch broad. Panicle 
inch to 8 inches long. Sj)ikelets to -j- inch long. Florets inch 
Differs from P. cjesia in the rootstock being conspicuously creeping 
and the plant not at all ctespitose, in the stem being more r^lender and its 
U[)[)ermost knot lower down, in the leaves being much narrower, more 
tapering, more gradually pointed, and not boat-shaped at the a{)ex. 
There arc fewer leaves at the base of the stems; the panicle is 
more lax and has longer branches ; the spikelets are more pointed 
at each end, the glumes more acuniiiuite and Ioniser in proportion. 
The plant has nmch the habit of P. di>tichopliylla Ga^Him (one of 
the forms of P. Ceni^ia AIL), but has the rootstock much less ex- 
tensivelv crecpinir, and is destitute of elongate stolons tcrniinating 
in barrm tnfrs. 
I believe Mr. \V. AVil^un's svx-cimins from Snowdon to be P. en- 
glauca. I hiivv nut .-pm) rect^nt W'vhli specimens, and have too imper- 
fect dried ones to feel certain us to their nomenclature. 
Glaucous Meadotc-Gra.^. 
