TRIANDRIA. DIGYNIA. Cynosurus. 
177 
up to the spike. Leaves sheathing, smooth, stiff, taper, three or four on 
each straw. Spikes one, two, or three, smooth ; three inches long, less 
than half an inch broad. Florets pointing one way. Calyx one-flowered, 
keel-shaped, doubled together, hairy, unequal, sessile in a hollow of the 
spike-stalk. (Whole plant rigid, tough. Spikets imbricated in two 
rows, lateral, lanceolate. Styles combined about three-fourths of their 
length. Sm. E.) 
Twin-spiked Cord-grass. (X). Cynosuroides. With. Ed. 2. E.) Huds. &c. 
D. stricta. With. Ed. 6. but not of Linnseus. Sm. FI. Brit. Willd. 
Spartina stricta. Schreb. Sm. Eng. FI. Marshes in Essex, and other 
parts of the sea coast. Near Aldborough, Suffolk. Mr. Woodward. 
Near the mouth of Feversham Creek. Col. Velley. (In the Isle of Sheppey, 
plentifully. Rev. Dr. Goodenough. FI. Brit. E.) P. Aug.—Sept. 
CYNOSU / RUS. # ( Cal. two-valved, awned, many-flowered ; 
equal: Bloss. two-valved, one valve concave, awned: 
Nect. two-leaved : Seed detached. E.) 
C. crista'tus. (Spike simple, strap-shaped. E.) Floral-leaves with 
winged clefts. 
Gram. Pasc. — Schreb. 8.1—( Hort. Gram .— E. Bot. 316. E.) —Leers 7. 4— 
Gisek. 54 — FI. Dan. 238— Barr. 27. 2— Mus. Rust. iv. 2. 2 —H . Ox. viii. 
4. row 3. 6— C. B. Th. 43— Park. 1160. 3— Anderson — Stillingf. 11 — 
J. B. ii. 468. 3. 
( Stems several, twelve to eighteen inches high. Spike erect, rigid, two 
inches long, with a wavy, rough stalk. Anthers purple, pendulous. Sm. 
E. ) Floral-leaves deeply divided into awl-shaped segments. Husks 
generally containing three florets. Smaller valve of the blossom ending 
in two points; larger valve ending in a short awn. Florets all facing one 
way, sometimes purple. Seeds rough, with very strong short bristles. 
Crested Dog’s-tail Grass. Welsh : Rhon-ivellt y ci cribrog. Common 
in dry pastures. E.)t 
* From xvvoc, a dog, and ypa, a tail; the spike resembling a dog's tail. E.) 
t The leaves of this grass are shorter than those of any other pasture grasses; but 
they grow very close together in great abundance, and are palatable to cattle, parti¬ 
cularly to sheep. It is, therefore, proper to be sown in fields intended for sheep-walks, 
but by no means as a meadow or hay-grass. The straws are remarkably hard and 
tough, and as they shoot up at a season when the leaves of all the grasses are 
very plentiful, they are not cropped by cattle, but are suffered for the most part to 
perfect their seeds, which afford a scanty subsistence to pigeons at a season when 
their food is very scarce. Rev. G. Swayne. (The roots penetrate to a considerable 
depth ; it, therefore, retains its verdure after most other grasses are injured by dry 
weather. Mr. Sinclair has found it more abundant in tenacious elevated soils, than 
in those of a drier or more sandy nature. In irrigated meadows it thrives to perfection, 
attaining an unusual size. It is not calculated for alternate husbandry, but forms a close, 
dense turf, a sward of the best quality, especially for sheep. Hort. Gram. Hippar - 
chia Pamphilus is found on this species. 
It appears that the culms of several kinds’of perennial British grasses yield a material 
for the manufacture of plat for Leghorn bonnets and hats, superior even to the Italian straw. 
Poa pratensis, Avenapratensis , Festuca ovina var. hordeiformis , and Nardus stricta, have been 
proved particularly suitable ; but none more so than Cynosurus cristatus ; for a bonnet of 
which, and equal in texture and colour to those imported, the premium of the large silver 
medal has been awarded by the Society of Arts. The only portion of the straw selected 
for this purpose, is the part between the upper joint and the panicle. (An admirable 
provision of nature has been detected in the additional strength afforded to these 
slender supporters of the ripened seed or grain, by the infusion into their composition 
VOL. II. N 
