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C 564 ]
ERIOPHORUM anguftifolium.
Common Cotton-grafs.
‘T R I A N D R IA Monogynia.
G en . C har. Glumes chaffy, imbricated on all tides.
Cor. none. Seed 1, inverted with very long hairs.
Spec. C har. Stem round. Leaves channelled, triangular
at the tip. Spikes feveral, on flower-ftalks.
Sy n . Eriophorum anguftifolium. Hoffm. FI. Germ. 19;
Dick/. Tr. of Linn. Soc. v. 2. 289. H. Sicc.fafc. 4 .2 .
With. 7 a .
E . polyftachion. Hudf. 21 . Relh. 20. Sibth. 24.
Curt. Lond. fafc. 4. t. 9.
Linagroftis. Rail Syn. 435.
L . panicula majore. Vaill. Far. t. 16. f . 1.
V e r y common and plentiful on turfy bogs, flowering in
April, and its brilliant white tufts look, throughout the fummer,
like feathers fcattered over the country. Root creeping. Stem
round, more {lender than the laft, ftriated, fmooth. Leaves
but little fhorter than the ftem, femicylindrical, channelled,
fmooth, narrower than in E. folyjlachion, fheathing at the bafe,
terminating in a triangular point; the floral ones 2 or 3, linear,
flat, various in length. Spikes from 3 to 5, ovate, on ftalks
o f different lengths, but always (as far as we have feen) Ample.
Glumes brown with a fllmy edge. After flowering, the fpikes
are partly eredt, partly drooping, but by no means pendent, and
the white hairs are protruded to full twice the length of the
kind laft deferibed, which renders this much more confpicu-
ous and handfome.
Cattle feed readily upon the leaves of this grafs in the
northern countries early in the fpring, before other herbage is
fufficiently advanced, but in more favourable climates it is not
worth the farmer’ s notice.