Field and Woodland Plants

by William S. Furneaux

The Common Quaking Grass.

Our single example of the Liliaceæ is the Butcher's Broom (Ruscus aculeatus), the only British monocotyledonous shrub. It is of a very dark green colour, varies from one to four feet in height, and is occasionally met with on the wooded heaths of the southern counties. Its rigid, evergreen, leaflike appendages, which are ovate in form, terminating in a sharp spine, are not really leaves, but leaflike branches or cladodes; for, it will be observed, they bear the flowers and fruits, which are attached to their centres. The only leaves possessed by the plant are the minute, deciduous scales, from the axils of which the cladodes grow. The flowers are white, very small, with a deeply six-cleft, persistent perianth, each one attached to the centre of a cladode by a very minute stalk. They are always on the upper side of the cladode, though it generally happens that they are turned downwards by a twisting of the base of the leaflike branch. The flowers are always imperfect, the male and female blossoms growing on separate shrubs, and both have a small bract at the base. The ovary of the latter develops into a rather large, scarlet, berry-like fruit containing one or two seeds. The flowers appear during March and April.

The Common Mat Grass.

Two of the Rushes (order Juncaceæ) are very common on heaths and moors. One of these is the Heath Rush (Juncus squarrosus), which appears on [Plate VI]. This is a rigid Rush, varying from four to ten inches high, flowering in June and July. Its stems are stout, solid, and generally leafless; and the leaves are narrow, grooved, usually less than half the length of the stem. The flowers are brown, either distinct or in clusters of two or three, arranged in a compound raceme, with a perianth of shining segments membranous at the margins, and about a sixth of an inch long. The capsules are blunt, but terminate in a pointed bristle.

The other is the Field Woodrush (Luzula campestris), a small plant, usually from four to six inches high, flowering from March to June, and often very abundant among the grass of hilly pastures and heaths. Its leaves are fringed with long, soft, white hairs; and the flowers, which are of a very dark brown colour, are arranged in three or four round or oval spikes. The segments of the perianth are very sharp, about an eighth of an inch long, with membranous margins; and the capsules are blunt.

We conclude this chapter with a brief notice of two of the Grasses of heaths and downs. One of these is the Common Quaking Grass or Totter Grass (Briza media).—A very pretty, erect grass, rather rigid, from six to eighteen inches high, common on dry downs except in the extreme North of Britain, flowering during June and July. Its stems are tufted, or sometimes slightly creeping; and its leaves are narrow and flat. The spikelets are round or broadly ovate, nearly a quarter of an inch long, more or less tinged with purple, on the long, slender branches of a loose, spreading panicle three or four inches long. The broad glumes are all similar in shape, but decrease in size upwards, and are not bristled.

The other is the Common Mat Grass (Nardus stricta), a densely tufted, wiry grass, from four inches to a foot in height, common on heaths and moors, flowering in June and July. The leaves are very fine and stiff, quite bristle-like. The flowers are in a one-sided spike, from one to three inches long, the one-flowered spikelets being placed alternately in two rows, in the notches of the central axis. The spikelets are often of a reddish or purplish colour, and each has a single, narrow, pointed glume, about a third of an inch long, an inner glume with a short bristle, three stamens, and a single style.

Plate VII.