■ ■ H
AIRA CARYOPHYLLEA.{ Spec. Plant.
Expanding Silvery Hair-grass.
Spec. Chah. Panicle expanding; leaves short, fine, and bristly.
T his humble inhabitant of our dry heaths and sandy commons seems unimportant in the scale of
vegetation; its herbage is insignificant, and its delicate and slender structure gives it no claim or
admission with our pasture grasses.------ By its light and silvery panicle it is rendered conspicuous,
•which it otherwise would not be to any but the searching eye of the botanist. Nature has
formed the Silver Hair-grass to occupy a particular situation, but the object is hidden from us; the
dryest sand affords it nutriment; it sometimes is found in better soils, and much, enlarged, but
even in that state assumes no importance: we will not guess in what its virtues reside, as science
is but little aided by conjecture, when fancy is alone our guide; and in attempting to investigate
the latent properties o f minute creation, we find nothing to direct the imagination to any important
result.
A , the Calyx.
B, the valves of the Corolla.