GRAMINA. 
125 
forms differ by having: the ligule extremely short, and the uppermost 
knot always about the middle of the stem ; most of the forms of 
P. nemorahs besides are far less glaucous in colour and have the 
spikelets much less tinged with violet, but certainly it is sometimes 
difficult (at least when the plants are dried) to separate some of the 
forms of P. nemoralis from some of those of P. glauca. 
Wood Meadow^ Grass. 
French, Paturin des bois. German, Hain-Bispengras. 
SPECIES VII.— P OA COMPRESSA. Linn. 
Plate MDCCLXX 
EeicJi. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. I. Tab. CLVni. Fig. 401. 
JBiUot, FL Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1382. 
Not cjEspitose. Rootstock slender, extensively creeping, producing 
few or several flowering stems and long or short stolons terminating 
in vernal or aestival leafy shoots or leafy barren stems. Flowering 
stems erect or ascending from a curved or geniculate base, not swollen 
at the base, green; the uppermost knot usually above the middle of the 
stem. Leaves narrowly linear, parallel-sided, rather abruptly pointed 
and hooded at the apex, dull opaque green ; sheaths smooth or nearly 
so, very greatly compressed and ancipitate, the uppermost one about as 
long as or longer than its leaf ; Hgule slightly prominent, 4 or 5 times 
as broad as long, transversely truncate. Panicle erect, indistinctly 
distichously unilateral, oblong or rhombic-oblong in flower, narrowly 
oblong and lobed afterwards, dense. Panicle-branches 2 to 5 at the 
lowest nodes of the rachis, but generally 2, the longest ones un- 
branched and bare of spikelets at the base for from one -fourth to 
one-half their length, ascending in. flower, and erect and generally 
adpressed in fruit, scabrous. Spikelets narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 
4- to 9-flowered. Glumes both 3-ribbed. Florets usually connected 
at the base by a few arachnoid hairs. Lower pale subobtuse, obsoletely 
3-ribbed or more rarely 5-ribbed, with the midribs and marginal-ribs 
silky-hairy at the base or in the lower half, pale dull green often 
slightly tinged with pale dusky purple and with very narrow white 
scarious margins towards the apex only. 
Yar. a, genidna. 
Plate MDCCLXX. 
P. compressa, Tam. Grasses of Britain, p. 80. Bah. Alan. Brit. Bot. ed. br. 
p. 402. 
Uppermost knot about the middle of the stem. Spikelets 5- to 
