146 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



Produce per Acre, 

 dr. qr. Ibs. 



The produce of latter-math is 



Grass, 6 oz. the produce per acre 4084 12 



64 dr. of grass afford of nutritive matter 2 127 9 14 



This grass is common in meadows where the soil is peaty ; it 

 generally inhabits the drier parts. It is eaten by horses, oxen, 

 and sheep, indifferently with other grasses ; hares, however, prefer 

 the Poa pratensis to this : for five successive years they cropped a 

 patch of the Poa pratensis, and left untouched a similar space of 

 this grass that grew close by it. The proportion of saccharine 

 matter was greater, in the nutritive matter of the Poa pratensis, 

 compared to that of the other constituents, mucilage, and bitter 

 extractive, than in the nutritive matter of this species of Poa which 

 contained more bitter extractive. This seems to confirm, with 

 respect to the liking of the hare, what Sir Humphry Davy has 

 proved with respect to the grasses most liked by cattle, " that 

 they have either a saline or subacid taste/' 



The produce of the seed crop, and that of the latter-math, con- 

 sists of leaves ; in the flowering crop there are many decaying 

 root leaves, and in the seed crop the leaves are more succulent, 

 but the culms are perfectly dry : this accounts for the equal quan- 

 tities of nutritive matter afforded by equal weights of the grass at 

 both these stages of growth. 



On a rich warm springy gravel, shaded with shrubs, Mr. Taunton 

 found this grass rising to the height of three feet in the culm, and 

 having an exceeding handsome appearance, from fine luxuriant 

 foliage ; but on a stiff clay he never found it exceed ten inches in 

 height. 



What was before said of the demerits of the Poa pratensis like- 

 wise applies to this grass ; and, from the above facts, it is evi- 

 dently one of the inferior pasture grasses, and cannot be recom- 

 mended for cultivation with any prospect of advantage, unless in 

 particularly dry soils, where superior grasses do not thrive. Flowers 

 in the beginning of June, and ripens the seed in the beginning of 

 July. 



POA trivialls. Rough-stalked Meadow-grass. 



Specific character: Panicle rather spreading; spikelets 3-flowered ; 

 florets lanceolate, five-ribbed, connected by a web ; stipula 



