POA PROCUMBENS.{ P oa ru pe stbis , Withering.
Procumbent Poa,
Spec. Char. Panicle spear-shaped, branches alternate, and in pairs; straw procumbent
at the base.
Poa procumbens is one of our scarcer plants, or at least a grass whose habits not rendering it very
conspicuous, it remained long unnoticed, nor was it observed even by Ray! a man with whom Nature
seemed to reside; not simply flitting by, but associating with her favourite son of science, led him
through all her solitary and retired walks: in a distant day we wonder at his exertions, and posterity
will testify his unbiassed veracity'; but the pious humility of this good man will be the admiration of
all ages till time shall be no more. Of late years the study o f botany has been pursued with an ardour
that has not only augmented the species, but enlightening the science with such a. lustre, that with
conscious pride we view, thus gaily decorated, the varied and scientific vest of our British Flora.------
The inner surface of the leaves of procumbent Poa are roughish, the outer smooth; sheathing smooth;
valves of the calyx unequal, each with three roughish ribs, two shorter. The sheathing seems to
attend the flowering panicle in this species longer than in any other o f the genus, but in time, the straw
becomes elongated. The natural habits o f this Poa are to be recumbent, but the flowering heads invariably
tend upwards from the higher joint, whilst the lower part yet retains its inclination downwards:
this character is very obvious even in the young flowering heads; when hardly peeping from the cradle
o f their sheathing (which is prostrate), they assume an elevated tendency, and bend from the upper
joint, in imitation of their elder fraternity.------ In dry situations procumbent Poa acquires about the
height o f four inches, but in moist places it assumes a greater altitude; It is abundant at Pill, below
the Bristol hot wells, and upon the margins of the marsh ditches we have seen it a foot high, with
that luxuriance o f foliage that water enables almost all the species to acquire.------This plant was
first figured by Mr. Curtis under the name o f Procumbens, an epithet infinitely more significant than
that of Dr. Withering, as this Poa, though perhaps occasionally found in rough and stony places, yet
never courts elevated and rocky situations, as the name Rupestris seems to imply.
Poa procumbens has a remarkable attachment to saline earths, and will exist in situations wherein
scarcely any other plant could: at Hartlepool, on the coast o f Durham, the poor people collect the
various species of Fuci, thrown on their shores, to burn; obtaining from them an alkaline salt, used
in the allum works at Whitby: these blocks o f crude ash are piled up in heaps, and the little yards
wherein these stacks are made we see, after heavy showers of rain, floating with an alkaline lixivium,
destroying every germ of vegetation, excepting Poa procumbens, which we find very sparingly in other
places, but which is there in abundance, and luxuriates in this corrosive fluid.
A, the Calyx.
B, the valves of the Corolla.