72 GRAMINEAL 
owing to its long, creeping, knotted rootstock, is very difficult of extirpation, 
and when it grows, as it often does, in corn-fields, it is very troublesome. 
Mr. Loudon remarks of it, that it is the true couch-grass of light sandy 
soils ; and long runners, which were but the result of a few months’ growth, 
have been found extending themselves five feet beneath the surface of the 
soil. It grows in uncultivated fields and thickets, and is very common by 
road sides, but is rarely a meadow-grass. It bears, in July, a light and 
elegant erect panicle, of numerous small spikelets, which is much like that 
of the next species, but not so ornamental, being rarely tinged with pink, 
and mostly of a dull greenish-white hue. Its stem is from one to three feet 
high ; its leaves lance-shaped, rather broad, and light green; and the knots 
of its stem usually woolly. The root shoots are very nutritious, and when 
taken up are readily eaten by cattle; but the dry, soft, insipid herbage is 
little relished by them. 
2. Meadow Soft-grass (H. landtus).—Panicle loose ; glumes rather 
blunt, spine-tipped ; awn smooth, except near the extremity. Perennial. 
We have only to walk abroad during June and July into the wide-spread 
meadow lands, and we shall be sure to see this grass. It grows on all soils, 
from the richest to the poorest, but its prevalence always indicates a poor 
and moist meadow. Its beautiful soft panicle, composed of innumerable 
small spikelets, crowded together, tinged with pink, often deepened into 
rich pinkish-purple, is large and conspicuous, though its brightness disappears 
as the grass gets older. It then, if abundant, whitens the pasture, so as to 
deserve its old name of Yorkshire Whites, or even of Yorkshire Fog. It is 
not unlikely, however, that it owes its latter name to its softness, which led 
to its comparison with moss, for which fog was an olden name, and by which 
it is yet called by North-country people, who allude to moss in their familiar 
proverb : 
‘‘The ro’ing stane gathers nae fog.” 
Our Meadow Soft-grass is one or two feet high, and has a fibrous root. 
Curtis says of it, that when it is in flower the farmer thinks his grass-land 
fit for the scythe. The herbage, as well as the flowers, is covered with soft 
down. It is not sufficiently succulent to be liked by cattle, and both leaves 
and flowers often remain untouched on meads when other grasses have been 
cropped all around them. Its nutritious properties are said to consist of 
mucilage and sugar; but it would appear that the properties most relished 
by our herbivorous animals are either sub-acid or saline. 
20. (27) OAT-LIKE GRASS (Arrhenathérum). 
Common Oat-like grass (4. avendcewm).—Panicle long and loose ; 
rootstock creeping, perennial. A variety of this grass, bulbdsa, has swollen 
or tuberous nodes, and is commonly called Onion Couch. The Oat-like grass 
is, during June and July, a tall conspicuous plant ; its panicle, composed 
of rather: large spikelets on slender branches, is often a foot and a half long, 
of a bright brown, or so tinted with shades of green and lilac as to shine in 
the manehing as if with metallic lustre. This grass is sometimes five or six 
feet in height, and it is as common as it is beautiful, for it nods in the hedge 
