British grasses : an introduction to the study of the Gramineae of Great Britain and Ireland / by Margaret Plues.

  • Plues, Margaret.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: British grasses : an introduction to the study of the Gramineae of Great Britain and Ireland / by Margaret Plues. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    extending a quarter of its length beyond the summit of the floret, and by the remarkably beautiful colour of the spikelets, which are of a rich chocolate hue tipped with white. In this form of the plant, the sheaths and the backs of the leaves are smooth, and the second floret is placed on a long hairy footstalk. Dr. Parnell records it as gathered on Ben Lawcrs. A. ccespitosa, var. brevifolia (Short-leaved Tufted Alra), is also an alpine variety, only found on the high- est of the Scotch mountains, never descending lower than three thousand feet above sea-level. Its short root- leaves and smooth sheaths and stem are distinctive fea- tures. The panicle is small when compared with that of the normal form, and the spikelets are coloured as in the last variety. The foliage is abundant though short, but the plant is shy in producing stems, only one arising from the centre of a dense tuft of leaves, all of which are harsh in texture and folded. The beautifully-tinted spikelets are large in comparison to the size of the pa- nicle. Both these varieties flower in August. The Tufted Hair-grass is distinguished from the Al- pine Hair-grass by the situation of the awn near the base of the flowering glume, and from the Wavy Hair- grass by the awn of the lower floret not reaching beyond the summit of the outer glumes. This grass is abundant in every part of England, Scotland, and Ireland, producing its panicles in great numbers in July, when they nod while in bud, and be- come erect and diffuse in flower; the seeds ripen in September. But when the seeds arc ripe, the panicles do not necessarily come to an end; they lose their sil- very brightness, and change their delicate hue for a universal straw tint, and in sheltered situations they