MELICA UNIFLORA. { Melica nutans, Hudson’s Flora Ang.
Long-branched Melic.
Spec. Chab. Panicle with few spiculas, and expanding ; footstalks many times longer than
the calyx; calyx with only one fertile floret.
This pretty sylvan plant delights in the deep dark Ikies o f various parts of England, in woods and
copses, particularly in the neighbourhood of beech trees, but seldom advances fo the full glare of
day; its spiculae appear very early, and remain but little varied to the eye through the lapse of several
months, excepting the greater expansion ,of the calyx, and divarication o f the branches, towards the
approach of summer. Leaves of a yellow-green colour, a little woolly on the inner side, and minutely
serrated on the edges.--------- Melica uniflora is perhaps the earliest of our grasses; the florets will, in
favourable springs, be seen peeping from the cradle o f their sheathing in the first warm days of
April. An elegant form seems almost every thing that our Long-branched Melic can boast; the
stations it delights in, and its natural habits, are obstacles to. its utility in agriculture, or rural economy
: the sparing hand with which the spiculas are scattered, to the prejudice o f its increase by
seed, is amply remedied by the numerous scions its slender and creeping roots give rise to.------—
Melica uniflora has been recommended by some French writer as an useful plant to ornament with
verdure those places in parks, and pleasure-grounds, which the sombre shade of trees has rendered
barren and unsightly, and where scarcely any other grass but this Melic will vegetate.
A, the Calyx.
B, the Corolla and abortive Floret.
C, the abortive Floret detached.
D, the Stamens, Styles, and conical Nectarium.