PLATE 47. 



SKUNK-TAIL GRASS. //or<^eum;uia/um, L. 



Other English names : Skunk Grass, Squirrel-tail Grass. Wild Barley, 

 Tickle Grass, and, inaccurately, "Fox-tail." 



Native. Perennial, not flowering the first year, forming tufts 8 to 12 

 inches high. Leaves grayish green. Flowers in beautiful silky bristly 

 heads 3 to 4 inches long, pale yellowish green, often tinged with red. When 

 ripe the spikes break up into 7-awned clusters of three flowers, the central 

 one of which is long-awned and fertile ; this produces a slender sharp-pointed 

 seed ; on each side of this and attached to it at the base are two abortive 

 florets, each with three shorter awns than the central one ; both the sharp 

 seed and the awns are barbed upwards. 



Time of Flowering : July ; seeds ripe July to August. 



Propagation : By seeds. This grass is frequently stated in works in 

 which it is mentioned, to be an annual or a biennial ; but all of the plants 

 which I have grown for many years at Ottawa from western seed during the 

 past twenty years, are certainly perennial, forming large tufts, but sending 

 out no running rootst'ocks. 



Occurrence : From Lake Superior westward, particularly in alkaline 

 soil, where other better grasses cannot thrive. 



Injury : This native grass is a very serious enemy of western stockmen, 

 and is a source of much injury to horses, cattle and sheep. The barbed 

 seeds and awns, when taken into the mouth, penetrate the soft tissues, caus- 

 ing annoying irritation and inflamed ulcers, which make the animals bite 

 their tongues and lips so that these are frequently badly lacerated. They 

 also work down beside the teeth, causing great inflammation and eventually 

 swellings which have sometimes been taken for the disease known as Lumpy 

 Jaw or Big Jaw (actinomycosis). The awns are also said by Prof. Aven Nel- 

 son (Wyoming Exp. Station, Bull, 19, 1894), to "work into the wool about 

 the eyes of sheep, and then into the tissues surrounding the eye, and even 

 into the ball itself, and in many instances causing total blindness." He also 

 cites one case where this injury happened to the whole of a bunch of calves. 



Remedy: Mr. T. N. Willing, of Regina, Sask., who has carefully stud- 

 ied the weeds of the North-west, sums up the best methods of dealing with 

 Skunk-tail Grass as follows in his Bulletin No. 16, "Hints for the Grain 

 Grower," 1905: "There is no diSiculty in eradicating this grass from any 

 land which can be ploughed, as the usual method of breaking in June will 

 destroy it. It gives most trouble in waste places where it ripens its seed, 

 which is spread abroad in every direction by wind and water. It grows 

 fresly about the edges of hay sloughs on the prairie, and is generally ripe 

 before any hay is cut. The remedy in this case would be cutting before the 

 seeds were formed. In a wet season, probably a second cutting would be 

 necessary to prevent any seed ripening. If this course were continued for 

 a few seasons, the pest would die a natural death, but it is the usual practice 

 not only to cut too late, but also to avoid cutting the borders of sloughs in 

 dry seasons when the grass is thin. Such methods favour the spread of this 



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