WEEDS OF THE GRASS FAMILY. 



51 



1. ANDROPOGON VIBGINICUS 



(P. N. 2.) 



Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the 

 ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass and carnage is for- 

 gotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural 

 lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers 

 vanish, but grass is immortal. It bears no blazonry of bloom to 

 charm the senses with fragrance or with splendor, but its homely 

 hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. Should its har- 

 vest fail for but a single year, famine would depopulate the 

 world." J. J. Ingalls. 



L. Virginia Beard-grass. Broom Sedge. 



Erect in dense tufts, smooth, 2-4 

 feet high ; culms with numerous short 

 > branches, light green when young, 

 brownish-yellow when mature ; leaves 

 6-12 inches long, acuminate, rough on 

 the margins. Spikes in pairs or some- 

 times 3 or 4, about 1 inch long, and 

 protruding from the side of the in- 

 flated leaf which surrounds the flower- 

 stem, the latter slender, jointed and 

 pubescent with many long spreading 

 silky hairs ; spikelets in pairs, one of 

 them sessile and perfect, the other 

 wholly wanting or represented by a 

 mere scale. Seeds oat-like, & inch long 

 with a straight inch awn at tip. 

 (Fig. 16.) 



Common in the southern half of 

 State and gradually spreading 

 northward. July-Sept. Occurs in 

 poor clayey or sandy upland soil, 

 especially on hill slopes where the 

 rocks come close to the surface. 

 Spreads both by wind-carried seeds 



and rootstocks and apt to become a serious pest. Remedies : grub- 

 bing out the first bunches which appear ; burning the land over in 

 early autumn to destroy the seeds; thorough cultivation; seeding 

 with clover or cow-peas. 



The broom beard-grass (A. scoparius Michx.) is also very com- 

 mon in dry soils in southern Indiana and becoming frequent north- 

 ward. It differs in having the joints of the flower-stem (rachis) 

 thickened or club-shaped at the ends ; the spikes solitary, loose and 

 distant and the awn of the seed bent at base. Remedies the same. 



Fig. 16. a, a spike; b, sessile spikelet; c and d, 

 first and second glumes. (After Scribner.) 



