HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 155 



FESTUCA duriuscula. Hard Fescue. 



Specific character : Panicle unilateral, spreading ; florets longer 

 than their awns; stem round, upper leaves flat, root fibrous. 

 Sm. Engl, Bot. i. p. 141. — Fig. 1. Calyx, with unequal valves. 

 2. Floret, or corolla and anthers. 3. Germeii, or rudiment of 

 the future seed, and the feathered cylindrical stigmas. 

 Obs. — Sir James Edward Smith, in his English Botany, ob- 

 serves, " That in this genus it is hard to say what may, or what 

 may not be a species ;" and, with his usual force and clearness 

 he reduces the Festuca glaiica, Festuca glabra, Festuca Cambrica, 

 Festuca duriuscula, and Festuca rubra, of Hudson, Lightfoot, 

 Withering, Winch, and Stillingfleet, &c. into one species. 

 All these grasses vary much from change of soil and situation ; 

 the flowers are particularly apt to vary in number, as well as 

 in the length of their awns : there is one character, however, 

 which I have never found to change under any variety of 

 culture, which is the creeping root ; and this is also an agri- 

 cultural character of distinction which is never to be lost sight 

 of, as it always produces a specific effect upon the soil, very 

 distinct indeed from that of the fibrous-rooted kinds. The 

 botanical characters given by the learned being, therefore, 

 insufficient to distinguish these grasses, (which I have no 

 doubt will be equally so with many of the present specific 

 distinctions of plants, when discoveries have been sufficiently 

 extended over every country,) I will here consider them of 

 two distinct species — the creeping-rooted, and the fibrous- 

 rooted : noting their varieties from other parts of the plant. 

 This will be sufficient for the purposes of the Agriculturist ; 

 or, at least, to practical men the discriminating characters 

 will be much less embarrassing, and obviate, in a great mea- 

 sure, in these plants the danger of mistake. See Sm. Engl. 

 Fl. i. p. 141 ; E. Bot. 470-2056; With. Still. Curtis. Lond. 



Root fibrous. Perennial. 



Experiments. — At the time of flowering, the produce from a 



clayey loam with manure, is — 



Produce per Acre, 

 dr. qr. lbs. 



Grass, 27 oz. The produce per acre is - 18376 14 

 80 dr. of grass weigh, when dry - 36 > 



The produce ofthe space, ditto - 194 1| 3 ^^^^ ^ ^ 



The weightiest by the produce of one acre in drying 10106 4 8 



