FOWL MEADOW. 49 



it is tender and liable to be injured by severe cold or 

 drought, and in moist, rich ground it has been ob- 

 served to grow tall, while it has been found equally 

 diminutive in poor land. It however yields abund- 

 ant herbage, and in places suited to it, it grows to 

 such a prodigious length that it is said to have been 

 found on the famous Orcheston meadow, near Sals- 

 bury Plain, fully eight feet long. This grass should 

 only be sown on moist, fertile and sheltered soils^ 

 and about 8 pounds of its seed should enter into 

 a mixture of other grasses for that purpose. 15 

 ••pntpnds of Poa Trivalis seed make a standard bushel. 

 I have sown it this spring, separately and witli^ 

 other grasses. 



CHAPTER XI. ^Z^: 



\Xi\Jiy 



^ 



FOWL MEADOW. — FALSE RED TOP. 



Poa Serotlna — Specific Character. 



Culms tufted without running rootstocks ; leaves 

 narrowly linear, soft and smooth ; li gules elongated, 

 spikelets 2 to 4 (rarely 5) flowered (1-12 to 1-6 inch 

 long), all short, pedicilled in an elongated panicle, 

 often tinged with dull purple ; floAvers and glumes 

 narrow ; lower palet very obscurely nerved. 



Flowers in July and August. 



This grass has been known and cultivated in the 

 New England states from an early period. 



Jared EUiot, writing in 1749, mentions it as grow- 

 ing tall and thick, making a more soft and pliable 



