The Book of Grasses 



bluest of the Poas, are noticeable in every soil; on sandy hills 

 and in the thickets that border deep woods, on scantily covered 



rocks and by trodden paths. 

 The whitish summits of the 

 sheaths are very conspicuous 

 against the blue-green leaves, 

 and although the plants vary 

 greatly in size they are rarely 

 more than two feet tall, and 

 are constant in their character- 

 istic colour and in the strongly 

 flattened stems. Unlike the 

 Kentucky Blue-grass, which 

 soon ripens, the Canada 

 Blue-grass blooms the entire 

 season. Its panicles are 

 short and narrow (usually 

 one-sided), with short 

 branches and greenish spike- 

 lets. 



False Red-top, the tall- 

 '\ est of the common Poas, 

 blooms in swampy places 

 and in wet meadows, where the green 

 spikelets show each a tawny orange tip 

 and sometimes change to dull purple as the 

 seeds ripen. The large, gracefully droop- 

 ing panicles could hardly be mistaken for 

 those of the Red-top of the fields, and 

 assuredly not if the spikelets were exam- 

 ined, showing several tiny flowers in each 

 spikelet where the Red-top has but one. 

 In many places this species is known as 

 Fowl Meadow-grass, and the tradition is 

 that it received that name from the fact 

 that wild ducks and other water-fowl 

 brought the seed to a low meadow near 

 Dedham, Mass. 



Flexuous Spear-grass and Short-leaved 

 Spear-grass {Poa autumndlis Siud P. brachy- 

 iq8 



False Red-top, or Fowl 

 Meadow-grass. Poa triflora 



