HORTUS GRAM1NEUS WOBURNENSIS. 165 



that it was a very inferior grass for pasture or for hay. Its merits 

 consist in being productive and easy of cultivation. But it is dis- 

 liked by cattle, is not an early grass, and when once in possession 

 of the soil can hardly be again rooted out. There being so many 

 grasses superior to this in every respect, it cannot support a good 

 claim to a place in the composition of the best permanent pastures, 

 and for cultivation singly, or by itself, it is wholly inadmissible. 

 The quantity of nutritive matter it affords, and being found a 

 constituent of the produce of some of the richest grazing lands in 

 Devonshire, are circumstances, however, which recommend it to 

 a place, in a small degree, in permanent pastures where the soil is 

 not light and siliceous ; where the soil is light and siliceous it will 

 increase to a degree injurious to the superior grasses of the pasture. 

 The seeds of the Holcus lanatus should therefore not be introduced 

 under the circumstances of soil above mentioned without much 

 caution. It produces a profusion of seed, which, being light, is 

 easily dispersed by the winds ; and though a late-flowering grass, 

 the seed ripens sooner than that of most others, and before hay- 

 harvest begins is generally perfected. The question is, therefore, 

 how to get free of it : hard stocking, and never suffering it to run 

 to seed, will at least prevent it from spreading farther. But 

 ploughing up the pasture, and taking not less than a five years' 

 course of crops, and then returning the land to other grasses, will 

 be found the best remedy. Flowers and ripens the seed in July. 



HOLCUS mollis. Creeping Soft-grass, Couch-grass. 



Specific character: Root creeping; calyx partly naked; lower 

 floret perfect, awnless, upper with a sharply-bent prominent 

 awn ; leaves slightly downy. Sm. Engi. Fl. i. p. 108. 



Fig. above, the two Florets ; the lower one perfect, awnless, the 

 upper shewing the recurved awn : which is a certain mark of 

 distinction between this and the Holcus lanatus. Fig. below. 

 Calyx magnified. Right hand Fig., Germen and feathered 

 stigma. 



Obs. The creeping root of this species of soft grass at once 

 determines it to be distinct from the Holcus lanatus. The 

 leaves are also narrower, and more soft than those of the 

 Holcus lanatus, and grow more distinct from each other ; on 

 the contrary, those of the H. lanatus are in dense tufts. 

 The awn in the lanatus is hid in the calyx ; but in the mollis 



