1278 
MESSES. J. B. LAWES, J. H. GILBERT, A1STD M. T. MASTERS, 
Plantaginacea:. 
This is a small Order, the species of which are very similar in habit. Plantago 
Icmceolata and P. media are the only species found on the plots. The species 
generally affect dry places, and are often found by waysides. They are natives almost 
exclusively of temperate regions. 
Plantago lanceolata. 
The common Bib-grass is a perennial, tufted plant, bearing close , rosettes of lanceo¬ 
late leaves, which spread flat on the ground at first, or where there is no impediment; 
but subsequently they assume a more or less erect direction. The stock is thick, 
strong, descending to a considerable depth, giving off numerous long, rather fleshy, 
root-fibres. The root-hairs are thin, long, delicate, sometimes consisting of more than 
one cell. It flowers in May, and continues to do so in succession throughout the 
summer. It is protogynous, and generally wind-fertilised; its seeds are matured 
before the first, and again before the second crops are removed. 
It is a variable plant, and in the Chiswick experiments (Jour. Boy. Hort. Soc., 
vol. iii,, 1870, p. 157) numerous self-sown seedlings appeared under the different con¬ 
ditions of manuring, which presented considerable variations in shape and colour of 
leaf, pubescence, &c.; variations which could not be attributed to the immediate 
operation of external conditions, seeing that they appeared in all the boxes indif¬ 
ferently, and in each box under the same conditions. At Bothamsted, in like manner, 
we have seen a hairy and a. glabrous-leaved variety in juxtaposition on the same plot. 
In severe frosts the outermost leaves of the tuft are liable to be injured, the younger 
central ones being unhurt. One consequence of this is, that a hardier plant in 
proximity to it has an immediate advantage, and commences to occupy the space left 
by the dead or decaying foliage, before the growth of the young leaves in spring. 
These latter, from the pressure exerted on them, are made to assume an ascending 
direction. 
The endowments favourable to the Bib-grass are its generally hardy constitution, as 
shown by its general distribution over more than a third of the surface of the globe. 
-Its dense, somewhat thick foliage, and its powerful and persistent root-stock also tell 
in its favour. The freedom with which seeds are produced also tends to perpetuate 
the species, even if the individual plants succumbed in the struggle. The following 
table shows the relative degree of prominence of this plant. 
