170 HORDEAE 



and usually a 3-celled dry pod with few to several seeds in 

 each cell. The petals and sepals are chaffy and small ; they are 

 never conspicuously colored, being brown or greenish or dull 

 yellowish; the stems are slender, not hollow like grasses, and 

 never very tall ; and the leaves are narrow and grass-like. The 

 plants live mostly in situations similar to those occupied by 

 grasses 'though most of them prefer places where there is 

 an abundance of water, thus forming a large part of the 

 vegetation of the open cienagas and boggy places or wet 

 meadows that are found occasionally in the mountains, espec- 

 ially at the higher levels. Several of the species are found 

 on the tops of the higher mountain peaks above 'timber line. 

 Naturally these last named species are of little economic im- 

 portance in New Mexico for very few animals ever go up to 

 such places even in the middle of the summer. 



Those species which grow in the wet open ' mountain 

 valleys or meadows and in the cienagas are usually of con- 

 siderable importance, since the owners of the land (and land 

 where there is abundance of water is nearly all owned in 

 New Mexico) have in most cases fenced these areas and cut 

 the "grass" for hay to be used either in feeding stock neces- 

 sarily kept up in the corrals or stables about the ranch, or in 

 feeding during periods of scarcity, especially in the winter. 

 Occasionally the hay produced is baled and sold, particularly 

 in mining camps or other places remote from the railroads 

 connecting easily with the alfalfa producing valleys. 



The hay produced from such plants is never very good 

 as feed, and stock accustomed to eating alfalfa will hardly eat 

 it. It is partly Qomposed of the true grasses (those species 

 which do best in very wet or practically saturated soil being 

 more or less common) and a larger or smaller proportion of 

 rushes, the amount of the latter usually depending upon the 

 water content of the soil. In situations where the ground is 

 saturated and sometimes flooded, the rushes do best and are 

 more abundant especially if the altitude is great and the 

 region C'l-respondingly cool. Where the conditions are re- 



