155 
ely longer, or sometimes 
SPECIES I.-B ROM US GIGANTEUS. Linn. 
Plates MDCCXCtH. MDCCXCIV. 
Edch. Ic. FL Germ, et Helv. Vol. I. Tab. CXLV. Fig. 358. 
Billot, FL Giill. et Germ. Exsicc. No. 888. 
Festuca gigantea, Yillars ; Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. vi. p. 419 ; et Anct Blur. 
Bucetum giganteum, Barnell, Grass, of Brit. p. 108. 
Perennial. Rather loosely caespitose. Rootstock not creeping or 
stoloniferous, producing several tall flowering and short barren stems. 
Flowering stems stout. Leaves flaccid, very broadly linear, gradually 
tapering from a little above the base to the apex, very acute, flat, 
with very numerous slender unequally raised slightly scabrous ribs, 
and very scabrous margins, very finely scabrous-puberulent between 
the ribs, bright green ; sheaths split to the base, sulcate, nearly smooth, 
or the lower ones scabrous, often puberulent, the uppermost one about 
as long as its leaf ; ligule slightly prominent, broader than long, trun- 
cate, lacerate, higher on one side than on the other. Panicle secundly 
drooping, large, lax, open and semi-pyramidal in flower and fruit. 
Rachis with distant nodes, scabrous. Panicle -branches 2 at the lower 
nodes of the rachis, the longer ones unbranched and bare of florets at 
the base for about half their length, arching-spreading in flower, 
scabrous. Spikelets applied to the branches of the panicle, lanceolate- 
subcylindrical before flowering, afterwards oblong- elliptical or oblong- 
lanceolate and compressed, 3- to 9-flowered. Glumes lanceolate, 
acute, not awned, broadly scarious on the margins, the upper a little 
longer than the lower and with 3 prominent ribs, the lower -with 1 
rib. Florets slightly open during the time of flowering. Lower pale 
eUiptical-lanceolate, acuminate, bidentate, with rather broad scarious 
margins and apices, with 3 to 5 faint scabrous ribs towards the apex. 
Awn from the bottom of the notch of the pale, erect, usually from 
once and a half to twice as long as the pale, more rarely only as long 
as the pale. Ovary glabrous at the apex. Stigmas springing from the 
apex of the ovary. 
Var. a, genumus. 
Plate MDCCXCIII. 
B. giganteus. Linn. Spec. Plant, p. 114. 
Festucu gigantea, Engl. Bot. ed. i. No. 1820. 
Spikelets 5- to 9-flowered. 
