470 GRASS FAMILY. 



panicle often purplish and more crowded than in the forepoinf!; ; flowering 

 in earliest suiumcr, the shoath smooth, and ligule short and blunt ; flow- 

 ering glume hairy along the margins and the 5 nerves. Makes the ear- 

 liest hay, Veiy variable. % 



FestOca elatior, Linn. Tall Mkadow Fescue. A rather rigid grass of 

 meadows and pastures, nat. from Eu.; l°-4'-' high, with green flat leaves, 

 a narrow panicle with short branches appressed before and after flower- 

 ing, o-10-flowered green spikelets, the flowering glume blunt, or acute, 

 or rarely with a short awn. % 



* * Flowers in densely contracted panicles and therefore seeming to be 



spicate. 



■*- Awn borne low down on the back of one or two palets. 



Rnthoxdnthum odoratum, Linn. Sweet-scented Vernal Grass. Nat. 

 from Eu. ; low, slender, soft and smooth ; the pale brown or greenish 

 spikelets crowded in an evident, spikelike panicle ; each composed of a 

 pair of thin, very unequal glumes, above and within these a pair of obcor- 

 date or 2-lobed, hairy, empty, flowering glumes, one with a bent awn 

 from near its base, the other with a shorter awn higher up ; above and 

 within these a pair of very small, smooth and roundish palets, of parch- 

 ment-like texture, inclosing 2 stamens and the 2-styled pistil, finally 

 investing the grain. 2/ 



Alopecurus pratensis, Linn. Meadow Foxtail. Introduced from Eu., 

 abundantly into meadows E.; flowering in sprmg; stem about 2° high, 

 bearing few pale soft leaves, terminated by a cylindrical soft and dense 

 spike, or what seems to be so, for the spikelets are really borne on short 

 side branches, not on the main axis ; these spikelets very flat, contrary 

 to the glumes, which are conduplicate, united by their edges towards the 

 base, keeled, fringed-ciliate on the keel ; these inclose a single condupli- 

 cate flowering glume (the upper one wholly wanting), which bears a long 

 awn from below the middle of the back, and surrounds 3 stamens and 

 the pistil. "^ 



<*- t~ Awn, if any, from the apex of the glumes or palets. 



Phleum pratense, Linn. Timothy, Cat-tail Grass, Herd's Grass. 

 introduced from Eu., a coarse but most valuable meadow grass, 2°-4° 

 high, with green roughish head, 3'-8' long ; spikelets densely crowded in 

 a long, perfectly cylindrical, apparent spike, each spikelet strictly 1-flow- 

 ered ; glumes 2, keeled and nearly conduplicate, awn-pointed, much 

 larger and of firmer texture than the thin and truncate awnless flowering 

 glumes. 2Z 



Setdria Itdlica, Kunth. Hungarian Grass, Bengal Grass. Cult, for 

 fodder, 2P-b'~' high, with rather large leaves, a compound or interrupted 

 so-called spike, which is evidently a contracted panicle, sometimes 6'-9' 

 long, and nodding when ripe ; bristles short and few in a cluster ; spike- 

 lets each with a single perfect flower, and by the side of it one or two thin 

 palets of a sterile usually neutral flower. Often cult, as MilleTo 



IV. Lawn and Pasture Grasses. The best and the commonest lawn 

 grass North and East is June Grass or Kentucky Blue Crrass, already 

 described, and it is the commonest basis of old pastures. Bedtop is 

 also common in lawns and pastures, but it is generally run out after a 

 time by June Grass. Sweet Vernal and Orchard Grass are of ten found 

 in lawns. Other common lawn and pasture Grasses are the following ; 



* Flowers in open panicles. 



Agrdstis canina, Linn. Brown Bent, Rhode Island Bent. A 



very dwarf fine grass, making a dense close sod upon poor soils ; culms 

 8'-2° high ; root leaves mvolute-bristie-form, but those of the culm flat ; 



