NATURAL HISTORY. 



41 



slender, smooth, the upper sheath no longer than its leaf, with a 

 very short ligulc, the base of the floret having a silky web suspend- 

 ing the calyx, leaves, light green. It is common in moist, shady 

 places, and appears as a tall, rank grass, with a long, finely 



arched panicle. 

 July. 



Fig. 28. Wood Meadow Grass. 



an acute point 

 sea. 



It flowers in June and ripens its seed in 



Though it has never to my 

 knowledge been cultivated in this 

 country, it appears to me worthy 

 of attention for moist soils. It is 

 certainly to be classed among the 

 best of shaded pasture grasses, 

 furnishing a fine, succulent and 

 very nutritive herbage, which 

 stock of all kinds are very fond 

 of. Hay contains one and sixty- 

 four one-hundredths per cent, of 

 azote. The grass loses about fifty- 

 five per cent, of its weight in 

 drying. Fig. 28 represents this 

 grass in blossom ; Fig. 29 a mag- 

 nified flower. 



The Creeping Sea Meadow 

 Grass, or Sea Spear Grass, 

 (^poa marUima,') referred by 

 Gray to g'li/ceria, is a beautiful 

 grass which appears in and 

 around salt marshes, growing 

 from six to twelve inches high, 

 and having a perennial, 

 creeping- root. Stem erect, 

 round, smooth, leaves most- 

 ly folded and compressed, 

 roughish on the inner sur- 

 face, spikelets linear, with 

 from- six to ten florets not 

 webbed, the outer palea of 

 lower floret terminating in 

 Grows naturally near the 





Fig. 29. 



Flowers in July 



It is seen in Fig. 30, and its flower magnified, in Fig 31. 

 6 



