KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS 



^33 



produces abundant rootstocks by means of which a firm sod is 

 formed. The panicle is spreading and is 2 to 5 inches long. The 

 spikelets mostly bear from 3 to 5 flowers (Fig. 38). 



Kentucky bluegrass is probably the greatest of all pasture 

 grasses cultivated in America^ and is grown extensively in a 



Fig. 38. — KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS (.Poa pratensis). 



moderately moist, cool climate on limestone or neutral soils. 

 In the cool mountain lands of the South it thrives well, but in 



1 Hitchcock says that forms of P. pratensis occur natively north of the United 

 States, in Canada and Alaska, but that all the United States material he has exam- 

 ined and all cultivated material is of the Old World type, and that, as a cultivated 

 plant, Kentucky bluegrass is not American but European. 



