530 TJte Natural History of British Grasses. 



invijiforated by manuring and good cultivation, for wliich this 

 species amply repays. 



4. Poa compressa — flat-stalked meadow grass — can only be 

 looked upon as a weed, and its thin wiry rhizomes make it very 

 troublesome in some of the Ijrashes of the inferior and great 

 oolite limestone rocks ; the Gloucestershire farmer distinguishes 

 it by the name of squitch, whilst the stronger rhizomes of 

 Triticum repens are termed couch. This weed is very diffi- 

 cult to get rid of, as it creeps beneath the stones, so that the 

 plough has but little chance with it, and where it once takes root 

 it is too rapid in its spread to be mastered by the fork. The 

 plan we have seen as most effective is to sow white mustard in 

 the wheat stubbles in which it prevails, and, when eaten off by the 

 sheep, apply a dressing of decomposed farmyard manure, and 

 plough up for a winter fallow. In spring prepare for the turnip 

 crop, wliich should be sown on the ridge ; by such means the 

 soil becomes deeper and better in equality — two circumstances 

 which, besides want of rest, are highly prejudicial to the growth 

 of squitch. 



5. Poa nemoralis — wood meadow-grass* — though early, yet 

 yields so small a quantity of light culms and delicate leaves as 

 to render it scarcely worth cultivation ; at the same time, if cut 

 early it sends up a second crop of flowers ; and its habits point 

 it out as well adapted for glades in parks, and under trees. Its 

 herbage, though not of great amount, is of good quality, and we 

 have observed that cattle eat it greedily. 



6. Poa Jiuitans — floating meadow-grass. In this species we 

 have a form at first sight so distinct from Poa as almost to en- 

 title it to another generic name, which indeed by some botanists 

 has been given, in that of Glyceria, a separation which we should 

 at once adopt, both from its structure and habit, were this the 

 only species in the gi'oup ; but its congeners, P. maritima, P. 

 distans, and P. procumhens, sufficiently unite it to the true Poas 

 for all practical purposes. This grass, with its evergreen leaves, 

 will be constantly found floating on the water of the pool or the 

 stream ; in the summer it sends up some upright culms, which 

 are more or less branched, and, with the whole herbage, very 

 sweet in flavour, on which account cattle prefer it when young 

 to almost any other species ; it is, however, remarkably liable to 

 become ergotised — a circumstance which would appear to render 

 it highly injurious to cattle which are obliged to partake of it, 

 arising either from the ill effects of the ergot itself, or the damp 

 circumstances under which the grass grows, or perhaps both 

 causes combined. In some cases which have come before us, 

 abortion in cows has been frequent in low meadows traversed by 



