HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 127 



The above details show that this species of meadow cat's- 

 tail is much inferior even to the lesser variety of the phleum 

 pratense. It is a very scarce grass, at least as far as my re- 

 searches have extended, having found it but in one meadow ir> 

 a wild state. It grows in a clayey soil near a spring in 

 Woburn Park, from which the annexed specimen was pro- 

 pagated. Hares and rabbits neglected this grass for the 

 common cotton grass ( eriophorum angustifoUum), which 

 grew closely adjoining. 



It flowers in the second week of July, and ripens the 

 seed in the end of the same month : but the seed is seldom 

 good . 



CYNOSURUS eruc&formis. Linear-spiked Dog's-tail grass. 



Specific character: Spike compound; spikelets scattered, 

 the fruit-bearing ones erect ; calices one and two-flow- 

 ered ; husks obtuse, boat-shaped ; keel obtuse ; corollas 

 acuminate. 



Obs. — This grass is marked an annual in botanical works, 

 but it is strictly perennial. Before the time of flower- 

 ing the spikelets are beautifully tinged with crimson on 

 the sides; it deserves a place in the flower-garden, on 

 account of the singularity and beauty of the spike. 

 Native of Germany, Russia, and Hudson's Bay. Root 

 fibrous. Perennial. 



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

 a clayey loam is 6,806 lbs. per acre. 



The produce at the time the seed is ripe, was taken the 

 season preceding that in which the flowering crop was sub- 

 mitted to experiment; and as the season of 1812, in which 

 the seed crop was ascertained, happened to be more favour- 

 able to the growth of this grass than that of 1813, when 

 the flowering crop was experimented upon, and the seed 

 crop likewise, according to the following details of results, it 

 will be more just to compare the produce of the crops of the 

 same season. 



At the time the seed is ripe, the produce of the season in 

 which the flowering crop was ascertained is 6,125 lbs. per 

 acre. The produce of latter-math is 3,062 lbs. per acre. 



