HORTUS GRAM1NEUS WOBURNENSIS. 139 



keep longer possession of the soil, and are more productive in 

 proportion as they are skilfully combined with each other. 



In the pastures most celebrated for fattening and for keeping the 

 largest quantity of stock, in Devonshire, Lincolnshire, and in the 

 vale of Aylesbury, I found cock's-foot in every instance to consti- 

 tute a portion of the herbage. In the most skilfully managed of 

 these pastures, the foliage of cock's-foot was only to be distin- 

 guished by an experienced eye, from that of the Alopecurus pra- 

 tensis, Poa pratensis, Poatrivialis, Lolium perenne, Cynosurus cris- 

 tatus, and other species of the finer-leaved superior pasture grasses 

 with which it was combined. The peculiar form of the leaf, its 

 glaucous colour and upright habit of growth, identified the cock's- 

 foot ; but the tufty or hassocky and coarse appearance which cha- 

 racterises this grass when cultivated singly, or when unskilfully 

 depastured, had in the instances now spoken of completely disap- 

 peared : although, by the most careful computation, it constituted 

 at the least one plant of every twenty of the composition of these 

 celebrated pastures. 



Flowers from June till August, perfects its seed in July ; or, if 

 the herbage is eaten down till a late period of the spring, the seed 

 does not ripen till August or the beginning of September. 



ALOPEC UR US pratensis. Meadow Foxtail-grass. 



Specific character: Stem erect, smooth; spike somewhat panicled; 

 calyx-glumes acute, hairy, combined at the base, shorter than 

 the awn of the corolla. Sm. Engl. Fl. i. p. 79. Fig. 1. Ca- 

 lyx and Floret, magnified. 2. Anthers. 3. Style and Germ, 

 magnified. Fig. to the right hand, Germ, and Style, of the 

 natural size. 



Native of Britain and most parts of Europe, from Italy, through 

 France, Germany, Holland, to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 

 and Russia. Flo. Rust. E. Bot. 848 ; Wither. Arr. ; Curt. 

 Lond. ; Hort. Kew. ; Flo. Ger. It is surprising, observes 

 Dr. Withering, that the specific character, in the later 

 editions of the works of Linnaeus, should describe this grass 

 as awnless : the awn is twice the length of the blossom, and 

 knee-bent.* 



* I have, however, found spikes of the Alopecurus pratensis without awns. The 

 first culms of the Alopecurus arundinacem which were produced in the Woburn 

 Abbey Experimental Grass-Garden, had spikes destitute of awns, and I concluded 



