DIANDRIA. DIGYNIA. Anthoxanthum. 



nectary, smooth, like the blossom of a Poa. St« — Spike not 

 strictly so, on account of the lower florets having short fruit- 

 stalks. Filaments short when the blossom first opens, afterwards 

 very long. Before the expansion of the blossom the anthers are 

 partly inclosed in the nectary. Stem with 2 or 3 short leaves ; 

 joints shining 



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Spring grass* Sweet-scented Vernal-grass. Meadows and 



pastures, common 



May, J 



59 



bark, or of 6 drams of the leaves, has been used to cure agues.— The seeds 

 are acrid and bitter— In the church-yard of Lochaber in Scotland, Dr. 

 Walker measured the trunk of a dead Ash tree which at 5 feet from the 

 surface of the ground was 58 feet in circumference. , 



The Leopard Wood Moth, Phalosna Prasinanaj Dominula y dxs&. Fraxlni^ 

 and Chermex Fraxinl feed upon it. 



* This is one of the earliest of our grasses, and is said by Linnaeus to 

 occasion the delightful smell of new mown hay. Mr. Curtis says that 

 the leaves, rubbed betwixt the fingers, impart a grateful odour. Boccone 

 says, a distilled water is prepared from it, as the vehicle of some per- 

 fumes. If it be gathered whilst in blossom, lapped in a paper and carried 

 in the pocket, it retains the smell of new mown hay tor a long time* 

 Cows, goats, sheep, and horses eat it.— —It abounds chiefly in wet lands, 

 flourishing in a particular manner on peatbogs. Seems to be of little 

 consequence to the farmer, as being neither very productive nor very pala- 

 table to cattle. The valves of the blossom adhere to the seed when it is 

 ripe, and the jointed awn by its spiral contortions through the alternate 

 moisture and dryness of the air, assisted by the awn and the hairs which 

 cover the valves, which from the same cause act as so many levers, sepa* 

 rate it from the^ receptacle, and lift it out of the calyx, at a time when 

 the spike is necessarily kept in an erect situation by a throng of taller 

 grasses surrounding them. A most curious and beautiful contrivance of 

 nature, without which, or some similar provision, the seed, in wet sea* 

 sons, would be apt to vegetate in the husks, and the young plants in con- 

 sequence become abortive. Mr. Swayne. 





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