P. COMPRESSA, L., WIRE GRASS. 139 



with minute silky hairs along the keel, margins hyaline ; nerves 

 obscure. 



Although not purposely sown anywhere, so far as the writer 

 can learn, it deserves notice because so often found in rather dry, 

 thin pastures on sand, gravel, or clay soil, in company with June 

 grass, which it somewhat resembles. 



The grass is a perennial, a foot or more high, with a stem 

 nearly solid, hard to cut, soon gumming the knives of the mower. 

 When compared with June grass, it flowers several weeks later, 

 the panicle is shorter, narrower, more compact; the leaves 

 shorter, the stem much flattened, and the whole plant of a much 

 darker color. In this country it does not spread rapidly by root- 

 stalks, as is the case with June grass and quack grass, but in 

 England it does spread rapidly. 



It well deserves the name "blue grass," by which it is often 

 known, as the whole plant has a dark, bluish, glaucous -green 

 color. It is to be regretted that the name ' l blue grass " was ever 

 applied to Poa pratensis, as is commonly the case in Kentucky 

 and vicinity. 



Prof. D. L. Phares, in his manual of grasses for the Southern 

 States, says: "Poa compressa is blue, the 'true blue* grass, 

 from which the genus received its trivial name.' It has priority 

 of claim to the name blue grass, and justly too, as the leaves have 

 a deep bluish tint/' 



Like Poa serotina, fowl meadow grass, it may be allowed to 

 get ripe before cutting, as its stalks remain green and nutritious. 

 No grass makes richer pasture or richer hay,, 



Gould says : " It never forms a close turf, and is rarely found 

 intermixed with other grasses. It never yields a great bulk of 

 hay, but this bulk weighs very heavily, frequently a ton or a ton 

 and a half to the acre, where one would not expect to get half 

 a ton. 



FIG. 67. 1, Plant of Poa compressa; 2, 5, spikelets; 4, empty glumes; 6, floral 

 glume. (1 from U. S. Agricultual Report. 2-5, F. L. Scribner.) 



