108 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENS IS. 



All these annual bromes are considered bad grasses by the 

 farmer. This much, however, may be said in favour of the 

 field brome-grass, that it affords an early bite in the spring, 

 and is eaten by sheep and lambs equally with other grasses. 

 It exhausts the soil but little ; the roots penetrate to 

 little depth in the earth. The seed falls from the husks as 

 soon as ripe, and vegetates quickly among the root-leaves 

 of the perennial grasses, and before autumn draws to a con- 

 clusion, attains to a considerable size. This grass withstands 

 the effects of frost better than many of the superior pasture 

 grasses : hence it is among the early grasses which afford 

 the principal herbage in the beginning of spring. Being 

 strictly an annual plant, its existence another year depends 

 on suffering it to perfect its seed, and, as before stated, the 

 value of its produce at this stage of growth is very little ; so 

 that its merits are reduced to this one, the produce of early 

 herbage in the spring, which will appear insufficient to re- 

 commend it for the purposes of cultivation. 



It flowers in the second week of June, and till August it 

 sends up flowering culms. The seed is ripe in the first week 

 of July, and successively till the middle of September. 



BROMUS muUiflorus. Many-flowered Brome-grass. 



Specific character : Panicle nodding at the top ; spikelets 

 spear-shaped, compressed, naked ; flowers imbricated ; 

 awn straight ; leaves woolly. 



Obs. — By attending to the form of the spikelets, this 

 species may readily be distinguished from the bromus 

 arven.sis, whose spikelets are linear spear-shaped. This 

 is nearer to the bromus muliijlorus of the E. Bot. than 

 to the bromus secalinus ; indeed, its alliance to bromus 

 mollis is so great, that it may with propriety be consi- 

 dered a variety, permanently larger, of that well-known 

 species. 



Native of Britain. Root annual. 



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

 a sandy loam is 22,460 lbs. per acre. 



