AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF MONTANA. 91 



and makes a valuable forage plant. Kentucky Blue-grass {P. 

 pratensis) is truly indigenous, and grows quite abundantly along 

 the streams and rivers. Poa teniiifolia may well be regarded as 

 the grass of the country. No species withstands the long summer 

 drought so well, and it constitutes the chief forage upon the dry 

 bench lands. It has several local names, such as " Bunch-grass/ 

 ''Eed-top," ''Red-topped Buifalo-grass/'etc. In the drier soils 

 the culms are low, less than a foot, and slender, usually of a red- 

 dish color, and the foliage is reduced to the short and dense 

 radical tuft ; but the jolant responds readily to richer soils and 

 better situations, and when growing along streams or on irrigated 

 land, it makes a luxuriant growth of foliage and attains the 

 height of two or three feet. As fine a field of natural grasses as 

 I saw in the Territory, or, in fact, as I have ever seen anywhere, 

 included Poa tenuifolia, Koderia cristata, Stipa viridula, Stipa 

 comaia, as the leading species, the Poa being the most abundant. 

 In this field the Stipas were unusually fine, overtopping the other 

 grasses. 



Manna-grass {Glyceria) — Three species are common; Reed 

 Meadow-grass {G. aquatica), a well-known grass in the eastern 

 and middle States, grows in similar situations here — wet grounds 

 and along the borders of streams — attaining the height of from 

 three to five feet. Glyceria nervata is still more abundant. 



"Great Bunch-grass," "Buffalo Bunch-grass," [Festuca sca- 

 hreUa). — This is one of the characteristic grasses of the country. 

 On the mountain slopes and foot-hills, at elevations of over 6,000 

 feet, it is the prevailing species, constituting one of the most 

 valuable forage grasses of the Avinter ranges. It often covers 

 many thousand acres of the "mountain parks," and during August 

 it is cut in large quantities for hay ; it makes excellent feed, both 

 for horses and cattle, but is rather too hard and coarse for sheep. 



Sheep's Fescue {Feshica ovina). — Tne name of •"Bunch-grass" 

 is applied also to this species, which, in point of altitude, occu- 



