HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 101 



soil can hardly be again rooted out. There being so many 

 grasses sujjerior to this in every respect, it cannot support a 

 good claim to a place in the composition of the best perma- 

 nent pastures, and for cultivation singly, or by itself, it is 

 wholly inadmissible. The quantity of nutritive matter it 

 affords, and being found a constituent of the produce of 

 some of the richest orazino- lands in Devonshire, are cir- 

 cumstances, however, which recommend it to a place, in a 

 small degree, in permanent pastures, where the soil is not 

 light and sihceous ; where the soil is light and siliceous it 

 will increase to a degree injurious to the superior grasses of 

 the pasture. The seeds of the holcus lanatns should tliere- 

 fore not be introduced under the circumstances of soil above 

 mentioned without much caution. It produces a profusion 

 of seed, which, being light, is easily dispersed by the winds; 

 and though, a late-flowering grass, the seed ripens sooner 

 than that of most others, and before hay harvest begins is 

 generally perfected. The question is, therefore, how to get 

 free of it : hard stocking, and never suffering it to run to 

 seed, will at least prevent it from spreading farther. But 

 ploughing up the pasture, and taking not less than a five 

 years' course of crops, and then returning the land to other 

 grasses, will be found the best remedy. Flowers and ripens 

 the seed in July. 



HOLCUS mollis. Creeping Soft-grass. - 



Specific character : Root-creeping ; calyx partly naked ; 

 lower floret perfect, awnless, upper with a sharply-bent 

 prominent awn ; leaves slightly downy. 



Fig. above, the two florets ; the lower one perfect, 

 awnless, the upper showing the recurved awn : which 

 is a certain mark of distinction between this and the 

 holcus lanatus. Fig. below. Calyx magnified. Right 

 hand Fig., Germen and feathered stigma. 



Obs. — The creeping root of this species of soft grass at 

 once determines it to be distinct from the holcus lanatus. 

 The leaves are also narrower, and more soft than those 

 of the holcus lanatus, and grow more distinct from each 



