shire, by Mr Joseph Woods, in 1825. Our specimens were
gathered, the old ones in August 1842, the younger late in
June 1843, at Whitemoor Pond, Surrey, half-way between
Guildford and the Woking station on the South Western
Railway, where the plant abounds, but seems in imminent
danger of destruction from the progress of draining and cultivation.
It has a wide European range (witness our synonyms),
but does not appear to be a common plant.
Plant spreading in the boggy soil by long jointed runners*,
clothed with striated membranous tubular sheaths, and terminating
each in a tuft of upright very slender leaves, of
which the outer ones are merely rudimentary, the gradually
lengthened points of the sheaths, and only three or four in
the centre of the tuft, attain the full length, being about the
height of the culm at the time of flowering, but scarcely
reaching that of the full-grown seeding plant. They are
acutely triangular, gradually flattened towards the blunt
apex, smooth, except the minutely serrulate edges and keel.
The three sides are nearly equal in width, but dissimilar,
that opposite to the keel presenting a rounded groove, whilst
one of the others is slightly concave, the third slightly convex.
Culm solitary, slender, obtusely triangular f, about six
inches high when in flower, ultimately thrice as high, smooth,
obsoletely striated, with two or three joints, and as many
leaves similar to those described, but the uppermost very
short, with long, smooth, striated, scarcely inflated sheaths.
The upper half of the culm, or thereabouts, naked; its base
encompassed by a few discoloured last year’s leaves, or more
generally by their dead and broken remains with torn and
widened sheaths. Spikes seldom more than four, ovate-
elliptical, crowded whilst in flower, but pedunculate, except
the terminal one, which, remaining sessile and erect, is overtopped
by the lengthening and at last drooping stalks of the
others, the lowermost becoming longest. These stalks,
although not from the same point, are closely approximate %,
* “Radix oblique adscendens, sine stolonibus FI. Lapp. 1. c. We cannot reconcile this. Authenhtoirci zsopnetcaimlibeunss. ’p’ rovWea hhils. platn tT thhee scalamues ea si no utrhse. original description in Roth’s Catalecta, '‘Folia cfeurlrmede ab yu lVtraah lm aenddi usmom aen leaitpeirt iaw,r”i tesrese mtos thtoe chualvme ibtseeelnf. erroneously transt
The arrangement of the inflorescence is the same in E. polystachyon
each with a short, loose, truncate, membranous ochrea, and
subtended by its proper bractea. They are clothed with a
pubescence of most minute pale bristles, some porrect and
some ascending*. Lowest bractea with a ribbed, submen-
branous, inflated base, and a leaf-like point, scarcely so high
as the spikes in flower, which in the second often, and always
in the third, is reduced to a mere mucro, the bractea appearing
but a wider and more numerously ribbed glume. Glumes
all fertile, gradually smaller upward, with several lateral
nerves on each side of the midrib. Stamens much longer
than the glume; anthers linear, pale yellow. Germen obo-
vate. Stigmas wavy, longer than the style, usually three and
simple, but occasionally four, and sometimes deeply cleft.
Fruit pale brown, oblong-obovate, three-sided, the side next
the rachis wider, sometimes with a central ridge resembling a
fourth angle. The numerous hairs that surround the fruit are
very slender, each being composed of scarcely more than two
longitudinal series of vessels: they at length form a compact
mass, about twice as long as the spike.
The tall slender habit and very peculiar leaves readily distinguish
this species. The tassels too are smaller and of a
purer white, and the individual hairs more slender, than in
E. latifolium and E. polystachyon; and the peduncles, glumes
and fruit afford decided characters. The clothing of the
peduncles seems to have been overlooked by the two contemporaneous
original describers j\ It is yet more remarkable
that Vaiflant’s t. 16./. 2., manifestly E. latifolium, should have
been referred with “ bona” to this species in the Catalecta,
and by several subsequent writers. The references to Tourne-
fort and Scheuchzer, moreover, must ever remain in doubt,
Tournefort adding nothing to the mere phrase Linagrostis
s(Eta.c haynognu,s tEifnoglilu. mB, oEt.n gt.l . 5B6o3l.. at.n 5d6 4ag.)a, ina nads EE.. laptuifboelsicuemn s(, fiSguuprepdl. ats. E2.6 p3o3l.y).oInrd
tehr.e laItnte rth teh feo rlomnegr ltohwee pr epdeudnucnlecsle asr ea rseo mofetteinm easg aailnl vberrayn schhoerdt , iwn hseimn itlhaer plant becomes E. Vaillantii of authors.
wa*r dIs n; nEo.t ,l aatsif oWliaulmlr otthhe i nb rAisntlne.s Baoret. croeapresaetre,d layp pasrseesrstesd, , baalclk pwoairndtsin. g fordatte
, R1o8t0h0’s. CHato. pBpoe t.r efcausrcs. t2o. hainsd EH. otpripqeu’se trTuamsc hienn b1u8c0h1, baneadr 1t8h0e2 ,s abmuet mreaskpeesc tnivoe mweonrtkiso nin o 1f 8th0i6s. chSacrharctaedre. r’sS dchesrcardiperti oann di sV, aash lu nsuoatilc, emd aits tienr ltyh.eir