CYNOSURUS echinatus.
Rough Dog’s-tail-grass.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G en. C har. Cal. of 2 valves, containing several florets.
Partial Receptacle unilateral, leafy.
Spec. Char. Bracteæ pinnate, chaffy, bearded. Spike
compound, ovate.
Syn. Cynosurus echinatus. Linn. Sp. PI. 105. Sm.
FI. Brit. 1 12 . Iluds. 59. JVith. 150. Hull. 2 9 .
Gramen alopecuroides, spicâ asperâ brevi. Mali
Syn. 3 9 7 .
X H I S grass loves a sandy soil and rather a warm climate. It
has not been found in any other part of our island than here
and there on the south coast. Sherard found it in Jersey.
W e have drawn a cultivated specimen, but not more luxuriant
than wild ones with which it has been compared. The seeds
were gathered in Sussex. It flowers in July, and is annual.
Root of a few downy fibres. Stems one or more, ascending,
leafy, round, striated, smooth, about a span high. Leaves
lanceolate, ovate at their base, acute, flat, striated, roughish on
both sides. Sheaths a little inflated, somewhat compressed
or two-edged, furrowed, roughish. Stipula lanceolate. Spike
ovate, branched, dense. Spikelets inclined to one side, alternate,
ovate, each accompanied by a sort of abortive spikelet,
called by Linnaeus a 'bractea, which is pinnate, consisting of
alternate, lanceolate, membranous, ribbed, rough husks, each
tipped with a straight, rough, purple awn, various in length.
Calyx of 2 equal, very thin, beardless glumes. Horets 2 or
more, their outer glumes roughish, each bearing a long rough
purple awn: the inner finely fringed. Seed clothed with the
hardened corolla.