m [ 1885 ]
B R OMU S squarrosus.
Corn Brome-grass.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
G en. C har. Cal. o f 2 valves. Spikelet oblong, 2-
ranked. Awn from below the top. Inner husk
fringed.
Spec. Char. Panicle drooping; stalks simple. Spike-
lets ovate, o f about twelve imbricated depressed
florets, with divaricated awns.
Syn. Bromus squarrosus. Linn. Sp. PI. 112. Sm. FI.
Brit. 129. Tr. o f Linn. Soc. v. 4. 288. Huds. 49 ?
With. 1 6 0 ? Hull. 25 l
Festuca graminea, glumis vacuis. Scheuchz. Agr. 251.
t . 5. f . l l .
Gramen phalaroides majus acerosum, nutante spica.
Barrel. Ic. t. 24. f . 1 .
M r . HUDSON mentions this grass as growing in fields
near Glastonbury, Somersetshire, and Marshfield, Sussex,
but no other person has been able to find it. Mr. Knapp,
the great investigator of British grasses, has never met with
it, and I have hinted my doubts on the subject in the FI. Brit.,
since which I have received B . secalinus from Sussex as
squarrosus, from a friend of Mr. Hudson’s, though not indeed
with his authority. Wishing this work to contain all
the British plants, as enumerated in the Flora Britannica, we
think it right to introduce a figure of every such plant, not
proved to be a mistake, from foreign specimens when no
other are to be had. Very few indeed are in such a predicament,
and our figures will lead practical observers to decide
each point in dispute, for the profit of those who come after
us. Having so nearly reached the termination of our labours,
we would leave nothing undone.
This is a small annual species, remarkable for its large ovate
spikelets, with turgid (but not cylindrical) many-ribbed
florets, whose inner glumes are comparatively very small,
fringed with remote teeth. The awns are singularly divaricated.
The hairs on the, sheaths of the leaves point down»
wards.