JIORTUS GUAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS, 91 



leaves ami neuter florets. 2. Ditto, mag. 3. Floret, 

 4. Oermen, valves, or nectary. 

 06s.— Floral leaves deeply divided into awl-shaped seg- 

 ments. Husks generally containing three flowers. 

 Smaller valve of the blossom ending in two points : 

 larger valve ending in a short awn. Florets all facing 

 one way. This grass is often viviparous ; in wet 

 seasons I have found it generally so, in Woburn Park 

 under the trees. I have found the alopecurus pratensis 

 under the like circumstances viviparous. Root peren- 

 nial. Native of Britain. 

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

 a brown loam, with manure, is 6125 lbs. per acre. 

 The produce of latter-math is 3,403 lbs. per acre. 

 The proportion in which the grass at the time of flowerino- 

 cxceeds that at the time the seed is ripe, with respect to 

 nutritive powers, is as 17 to 10, and is superior to the latter- 

 math in the like proportion. 



The quantity of grass at the time the seed is ripe, is just 

 twice as much as at the time of flowering; but the grass at 

 the former period contains nearly twice the quantity of nutri- 

 tive matter, as appears above ; and when the latter-math, 

 which would be produced during the time the seed was 

 ripening, is added to this, it shows the superior advantao-e 

 of taking the crop when the grass is in flower. The culms 

 of this grass are of a wiry nature, and, at the time the seed 

 is ripe, contain no nutritive matter. The leaves are rather 

 slow in growth, are short, but form a dense turf; hence, the 

 weight of grass at the time the seed is ripe is greater than at 

 the time of flowering, but contains proportionally less nutri- 

 tive matter. It is therefore inferior for the purpose of hay, 

 but admirably adapted for permanent pasture. The roots 

 penetrate to a considerable depth in the ground, from which 

 circumstance it continues green after most other grasses arc 

 hurt by a continuance of dry weather. Mr. Curtis observes, 

 that it affects a dry soil, and that it will not thrive in mea- 

 dows that arc wet ; but I have always found it more abun- 

 dant in moist, or rather tenacious elevated soils, than in 

 those of a drier and more sandy nature, in irrigated mea- 



