HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNEKSI3. 227 



by seeds, or by planting the stolones, or decumbent-rooting 

 shoots. 



Flowers in the second and third weeks of July, and ripens 

 the seed about the middle of August. 



AGRO^Tl^ alba. White Bent. 



Specific character: Panicle spreading, meagre, branches 

 roughish ; culms decumbent ; root creeping. Fig. 1 . 

 Floret, magnified. 2. Inner husks and germen. 



The creeping root and meagre produce of the agrostis alba, 

 and the fibrous root and comparatively great produce of the 

 a. stohnifera, are agricultural characters of distinction of the 

 highest importance ; and although the writer of this perfectly 

 agrees in the opinion, that the essential botanical characters 

 of distinction afforded by these grasses are insufficient to 

 constitute them distinct species, yet the very opposite ex- 

 ternal habits and agricultural merits of these grasses, and 

 which have been fully proved to be permanent, induce me, 

 but with the greatest deference, to retain those names of 

 these grasses nearly the same as they are given in the 

 original of these pages. That our agrostis stolomfera is the 

 a. alba of Linnaeus, is clearly proved by Sir James Edward 

 Smith in his English Flora. The error seems to have ori- 

 ginated in Withering, and from that authority propagated 

 with ready facility among practical men ; the term stolonifera 

 being so appropriate a name to that grass, while the term 

 alba, on the other hand, seemed equally unappropriate, as 

 conveying the idea of a property existing in the plant no- 

 where apparent, but when applied to the creeping-rooted 

 agrostis, as described by Withering and others under the 

 name of alba, might very properly allude to the white creep- 

 ing roots of that species. 



Native of Britain. Root perennial. 



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

 a clayey soil is 8,167 lbs. per acre. 



This grass is late, unproductive, and contains but little 

 nutritive matter. Its creeping roots greatly exhaust the 

 soil; in this variety they arc smaller than in the other 



Q 2 



