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.

    194/386
    minute teeth on the apex, five-nerved, roughish on the heel, and with hairs on the base, awned ; awn situated above the centre of the keel, stout and twisted in the lower part, thin and stiff above, rough on the upper part, and bent when dry. Dry pastures, heaths, rocky places, and, above all, chalk meadows are the natural habitats of the Perennial or Narrow-leaved Oat. No one can traverse the thinly covered meadows bordering the stretch of downs famous as Salisbury Plain, without being attracted by the broad loose spikes of this grass, the somewhat dishevelled ap- pearance of which claims the notice of botanists at once. Few Wiltshire meadows are without this grass. It flowers in June, and is of most value for agricultural purposes at that time, as it then contains most nutritive matter. Sheep and cows relish the early foliage best. It is frequent in the situations already indicated through- out Britain, and also in Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Ger- many, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Var. pubescens has a perennial root, somewhat creep- ing ; an erect, simple, roundish, smooth, striated, leafy stem, one or two feet high; leaves spreading, sharp, acute, flat, covered with soft down, those of the root most downy; sheaths finely ribbed, downy, upper one thrice the length of its leaf; ligule acute, prominent;