JIAY. 73 



Several plants have been called grass ; but the 

 true grasses have characteristic marks, which, 

 when once known, are obvious even to those 

 unacquainted with botany. They have all long 

 slender leaves, hollow jointed stems, and green 

 flowers. Swine are so fond of the knotgrass, 

 that it is, in some counties, commonly called 

 swine' s-cress, or hog-weed ; and the plant 

 strewed so abundantly over our land, forms, by 

 its seeds and young buds, a good store for the 

 birds. From INIilton's lines we may suppose 

 it to be a pleasant food for sheep, as he 

 speaks of the evening, when, 



"The chewiiif; flocks, 

 Had ta'cn their supper of that savour>' lierh, « 

 Tlie knotgrass." 



Several of the true grasses flower during May, 

 though the greater number are not decked with 

 their green and purple panicles, or their silvery 

 pyramids, till the later months. Among the 

 early blooming grasses, we may mention the 

 common foxtail-grass, (^Alopecurns j}i'(itensis,) 

 which grows on almost every spot of pasture ; 

 and is a very useful grass for cattle, blooming 

 twice in the year; and being ripe for the scythe 

 even as early as this month. Its long yellow- 

 greenish blooms are covered with silvery hairs. 

 The bulbous meadow grass, (Poa bulbosa,) and 

 the annual meadow grass, {Poa anmia,) are now 

 commonly in flower ; the latter, on all green 

 places, in all countries. AVe have fourteen 

 species of the poa grass. One common kind, 

 the tallest of our native grasses, the reed meadow 

 c3 



