/ S 'i [ 1059 ]
M E L I C A nutans.
Mountain Me lic -g ra js .
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G en. C har. Cal. of a valves, with about a flowers,
and the rudiment of another between them. Cor.
of 2 valves.
Spec. C har. Petals beardlefs. P anicle d o le , leaning
to on e fide, nearly firnple. Flow ers pendulous.
Calyx containing tw o perfedt florets.
Syn . Melica nutans. Linn. Sj>. PL 98. Sm. FL
Brit. 92. With. 138. Hull. 21. Dick/. H. Sicc.
fafc. 8. 5* Curt. Lond. fafc. 6 . t. 4 . Mart.
Ruß. t. 65.
M . montana. Hudf. 3 7 .
G ramen avenaceum , locuftis rubris, m ontanum .
Raii Syn. 403.
T H E real Melica nutans is a much more rare plant than the
fpecies in our laft plate, and is only found in mountainous woods
in the north of England; nor does it feem, by Lightfoot’s
account, to be general in Scotland, this being what he mentions,
p. 96, as a variety of the common fpecies. They are however
moll unqueftionably diftinft. The grafs of which we are now
treating flowers rather later than the other; its ftem is more
angular, its leaves narrower; but it is fufficiently marked by
the almofl perfectly Ample panicle or fpike, and the pendulous
flowers, each of which confifts o f twoperfedt and fertile florets,
befides the rudiments of two abortive ones.