NATURAL HISTORY. 63 



feet high, with a perennial long creeping root, stem erect, round, 

 smooth, leaves long, narrow, hard, greyish, pointed, grooved, 

 rolled in, smooth behind and rough on the inner surface. It 

 flowers in July. Difiers from the common beach grass in having 

 a short obtuse ligule, and spikelets without footstalks, of three 

 or four florets, while beach grass has a long and pointed ligule, 

 and spikelets with footstalks, and of only one floret. 



Sinclair calls this grass the sugar cane of Great Britain. It 

 contains a large quantity of saccharine matter, and it is proba- 

 ble that mixed with beach grass, as it is in Holland, it would be 

 valuable to cut up and mix with common hay for winter feed. 

 It is used precisely as beach grass is here, to prevent the 

 encroachments of the sea, and to arrest the drifting of sand. It 

 is not found growing wild in this country as beach grass is. I 

 have cultivated it, by way of a partial experiment, on Nahant 

 Beach, and it has been sown in other parts of the country. 



Bottle-brush Grass, (^g-t/mnostichum hi/strix,') is found rather 

 commonly in moist rocky woodlands, and along shaded banks 

 of streams, and may be known by its loose upright spike and 

 spreading spikelets, smooth sheaths and leaves, smoothish flow- 

 ers tipped with an awn three times their length. Flowers in 

 July. 



Wood Hair Grass, or Common Hair Grass, (aira flexuosa,') 

 is a common grass on our dry and rocky hills, and road sides, 

 and high upon Wachuset Mountain. The generic name is the 

 Greek afra, darnel, or tares, and its characteristics are, two 

 flowered spikelets, in an open diffuse panicle ; flowers both per- 

 fect, shorter than the glumes, hairy at the base, lower palea 

 three to five nerved, awned on the back, grain oblong, smooth. 



Specific characters : Stems slender, one to two feet high, 

 nearly naked, leaves dark green, often curved, bristle-formed, 

 branches of the panicle hairy, spreading, mostly in pairs, lower 

 palea slightly toothed, awn starting near the base, bent in the 

 middle, longer than the glumes, which are purplish — perennial. 

 Flowers in June. This plant is sometimes found 3,500 feet 

 above the level of the sea. Sheep eat it readily. Of no value 

 for cultivation. Fig. G2 represents this grass in blossom, and 

 Fig. 63 a magnified flower of it. It contains when dry but .03 

 per cent, of nitrogen. 



Hassock Grass, (^ah-a ccespitosa,') also belongs to this genus 



