The Book of Grasses 



grow by the shore, but like them it does not bloom until late 

 summer. Many stems, usually less than two feet tall, spring 

 from one root and bear very short, narrow, rough leaves. The 

 panicles, also, are short, with but a few stiff branches, and bear 

 loosely flowered, rose-purple spikelets. The outer scales are 

 smooth but the flowering scales are fringed and bearded, pre- 

 senting a distinguishing feature by which this grass may easily 

 be recognized, and the acid taste of the plant is also peculiar 

 to it. 



Sand-grass. Triplasis purpilrea (Walt.) Chapm. 



Perennial, tufted. 



Stem 1-3 ft. tall, erect or spreading. Nodes usually downy. Ligule a 

 ring of short hairs. Leaves rigid, awl-shaped, ^'-^ long, i" wide or 

 less. 



Panicle i'-^' long, branches few, at length spreading. Lateral panicles 

 usually included in the sheaths. Spikelets 2-5-flowered, 2"-4" long, 

 loosely flowered. Outer scales about equal, smooth; flowering scales 

 very hairy on nerves, 2-Iobed at apex and bearing a short, straight awn 

 between the lobes; palets hairy on upper part of keels. Stamens 3. 



Sandy soil, especially along the coast. July to September. 



Maine to Florida, westward to Nebraska and Texas. 



PURPLE ERAGROSTIS, LACE-GRASS, TUFTED ERA- 



GROSTIS, PURSH'S ERAGROSTIS, STRONG-SCENTED 



ERAGROSTIS. AND CREEPING ERAGROSTIS 



When the warm colour of Bent-grasses has faded, these grasses 

 of late summer intensify, with deep violet and purple, the gold of 

 harvest. 



One of the most common species, Purple Eragrostis, called by 

 children "Tickle-grass," grows in low tufts on dry and sandy soil, 

 where the gauzy flowering-heads, a foot long or more, spread 

 above the dark green, hairy leaves. As the sunlight of early 

 morning falls 



"Across the meadows laced with threaded dew" 



the flowering-heads of this grass glisten with an intense colour 

 which is reflected in each cryst-al dewdrop that gems the spikelets. 

 In dry fields, where the September sun has burned to a golden 

 brown the shorter growth of grasses, ripening panicles of Purple 



172 



