Catabrosa.'] 
CVII. GRAMINEyE. 
539 
Rare ; in sandy fields which are occasionally flooded by the Thames 
and the Ouse; in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. ©. 6, 7. — 
A beautiful grass, with very' slender branches to its ample panicle, 
| which is wavy and glossy like silk, well named by Parkinson “ Gramen 
' agrorum venti spica." Awn many times longer than the spikelet, rough. 
Inner glumella not much less than the outer; at its base is a little 
neuter floret, resembling a pedicel destitute of flower, which has a 
small tuft of hairs on each side. 
6. A. interrupt a L. ( dense-flowered silky B.) ; panicle long 
contracted narrow, branches half-whorled the lower ones remote, 
glumes unequal lanceolate rough on the keel, outer glumella 
bifid with a subterminal long straight awn, inner one smaller 
with a small stalk-like neuter floret at its base, anthers broadly 
oval. Apera Beauv.: E. B. S. t. 2951. Anemagrostis Trin. 
Sandy pastures, rare. About Thetford ; Pampisford and Chippen- 
ham, Cambridgeshire. 0. 6, 7. — So closely allied to the last thac 
Mr. Bentham has united them : it only differs by the contracted 
panicle and shorter anthers, agreeing in all the other characters. 
** Spikelets 2 — 3 -flowered: perfect florets 2, very rarely 3 ; some- 
times solitary , with 1 — 2 imperfect barren florets or a neuter 
one which is as large as the perfect one or sometimes (in 
Catabrosa, Molinia, and Melica) rudimentary. (Tab. VI. 
f. 14. VII. f. 15—22.) (Gen. 15—25.) 
| Styles short. Stigmas plumose , much thicker than the style. 
15. Catabrosa Beauv. Whorl-grass. (Tab. VI. f. 14.) 
Panicle spreading. Spikelets scarcely compressed, ovate, awn- 
less, with 1 — 3 perfect florets and often 1 — 2 neuter ones. 
Glumes 2, membranous, 1 -nerved, much shorter than the 
spikelets, convex on the back, very obtuse, lower one the 
smaller, upper crenate or toothed at the end. Glumellas 2, 
coriaceous, membranous only at the extremity, 3-ribbed, trun- 
cate and erose at the end, nearly equal. Caryopsis free. — 
Named from KaraSpiooig, a gnawing; from the erose extremity 
of the glumes. 
1. C. aqudtica Beauv. (Wafer TV.) ; panicle with wlmrled 
patent branches, leaves broadly linear obtuse. — a. larger, 
spikelets 2 — 3-flowered. Pam. Gr. t. 20. Aira L. : E. B. t. 
1557. — 1 3. littoralis; small, spikelets 1 -flowered. Pam. Gr. t. 
102. 
Banks of rivers, and floating in pools of water. — 0. on the sea- 
shore in the west of England and Scotland. If. 5, 6. — This is very 
different in habit and generic character from Aira, and from any other 
grass with which we are acquainted. Mertens places it in Poa among 
those with long spikelets, which now, according to Smith, form the 
a a 6 
