NATURAL HISTORY. 39 



paneling more at floworhig ; short branches often in pairs, 

 covered with fonr to nine Uowered, flat spikelcts ; flowers rather 

 obtuse, linear, hairy below on the keel ; ligule short and blunt ; 

 height about a foot. It is very common on dry, sandy, thin 

 soils and banks, so hardy as to grow on the thin, hard soils 

 'covering the surface of rocks, along trodden walks, or gravelly 

 knolls. It shoots its leaves early, but the amount of its foliage 

 is not large, otherwise it would be one of our most valuable 

 grasses, since it possesses a large per cent, of nutritive matter. 

 Flowers in July. Most grazing animals eat it greedily, and it 

 is especially relished by sheep. Its bluish green stems retain 

 their color after the seed is ripe. It shrinks less in drying than 

 most other grasses, and consequently makes a hay very heavy 

 in proportion to its bulk. It is an excecdingl}^ valuable pasture 

 grass on dry, rocky knolls and should form a portion of a mix- 

 ture for such soils. This should not be confounded with Ken- 

 tucky blue grass alluded to above. 



Annual Spear Grass, Qpoa annua, see Fig. 1,) is, perhaps, 

 the most common of all our grasses. Its stems are spreading, 

 flattened, panicle often one sided, spikelets crowded, three to 

 seven flowered, lower palea more or less hairy on the nerves 

 below ; leaves of a light green, sword-shaped, flat, often crump- 

 led at the margins, as appears in Fig. 1, smooth on both surfaces, 

 rough at the edges. Florets not webbed, and this distinguishes 

 it from the June grass, (^poa pralensis,^ and its varieties. The 

 outer or lower palea of this grass has no hairs on the lateral 

 ribs as the poa pratensis has. This modest and beautiful grass 

 flowers throughout the whole summer and forms a very large 

 part of the sward of New England pastures, producing an early 

 and sweet feed, exceedingly relished by cattle. It does not 

 resist the drought very well, but becomes parched up in our 

 pastures. 



The Rough Stalked Meadow Grass, (^poa trivialis,^ though 

 not so common as the June grass, {poa pratensis,') is still often 

 met with, and is found to have webbed florets ; outer palea five 

 ribbed, marginal ribs not hairy, ligule long and pointed, stems 

 two to three feet high. Distinguished from June grass by hav- 

 ing rough sheaths, while in the latter the sheaths are smooth, 

 the ligule obtuse and the marginal ribs of outer palea furnished 

 with hairs. The rough stalked meadow grass has a fibrous 



