2797
G L Y C E R I A Borreri.
Borrerian Meadow Grass.
TR1ANDR IA Digynia.
Gen. Char. “ Cal. of 2 valves containing1 many florets.
Cor. awnless, cylindrical furrowed, ribbed,
abrupt,not keeled. Seed loose, cylindric-oblong.”
—Smith.
Spec. Char. Panicle spreading, in fruit ascending
and patent. Spikelets linear, of about 4 flowers.
Florets free. Outer glume of corolla obsoletely
5-nerved with a minute point. Root fibrous.
_A.S the generic arrangement of the Grasses appears to be
in a very unsettled slate, I have thought it better, temporarily,
to place this plant in the genus Glyceria, to which I
have no doubt that it would have been referred by the late
Sir J . E. Smith. But having recently, in a communication
to the Linnean Society, considered it, in conformity with
the views of the celebrated Kuntb, as belonging to the section
Sclerochloa of his genus Festuca, I may be allowed to
add, that it appears much more nearly related to that genus
than to Poa, in which its allies have been placed by several
eminent botanists.
The root is fibrous, the stems ascending, from 6 inches
to more than a foot in height, smooth and striated, bearing
1 or 2 small leaves with very long sheaths, having short,
slightly acute, and membranous ligules. Leaves flat, furrowed,
scabrous on the margins and upper surface. Panicle
at first compact, afterwards patent, its branches semi-verti-
cillate, rough and spreading; when in fruit never deflexed.
Spikelets usually 4, sometimes 3- or 5-flowered, the flowers
imbricated in two rows, much nearer together than in G.di-
stans. Caiycine glumes 2, glabrous, concave, their margins
membranous; the exterior one ovate, with one strong
nerve, reaching not quite to its top; the interior much larger,
yet far shorter than the contiguous flower, broadly