_Ap! 1ft J847.
2918.
POA Balfourii.
Balfour’s Meadow Grass.
TRIANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Spikelets of two or more florets. Glumes
rather unequal, mostly shorter than the lowest
floret. Outer palea with three or five nerves,
membranous below, scarious at the tip, compressed,
keeled, unarmed. Styles terminal, very
short. Stigmas protruded from the base of the
floret.
Spec. Char. Panicle erect, rather spreading. Spike-
lets ovate, of three or four webbed florets. Outer
palea with five nerves, the dorsal and marginal
hairy, intermediate indistinct. Upper sheath
about as long as its leaf; upper joint in the lower
third of the stem ; ligule prominent and obtuse.
Syn. Poa Balfourii. Pam. in Ann. Nat. Hist. v. 10.
121. t. 5. Brit. Grass. 145. t. 66. Bab. Man.
Brit. Bot. 367.
T h i s grass is an inhabitant of lofty mountains in Scotland
and .the north of England, growing on a micaceous soil. It
seems to prefer the steep slopes of crumbling rocks. The
writer has gathered it upon Ben Lawers and the neighbouring
lofty summits, and upon Ben Voirlich (the place where it
was first noticed by Prof. Balfour) near the head of Loch
Lomond, in Scotland; also in a steep ravine above the farm
of Dunsdale in the Great Cheviot, Northumberland. Mr.
Jas. Backhouse, jun., found it on the north-west side of Ingle-
borough in Yorkshire, and Dr. Parnell mentions Clova, For