470 GRASS FAMILY. 



panicle often purplish and more crowded than hi the foregoing ; flowering 

 in earliest summer, the sheath smooth, and ligule short and blunt ; flow- 

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

 liest hay. Very variable. 21 



FestOca e/atior, Linn. Tai.i. Mkaoow Fescue. A rather rigid grass of 

 meadows and pastures, nat. from Eu.; 1*^-4° high, with green flat leaves, 

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

 ing, 5-10-flowered green spikelets, the flowering glume blunt, or acute, 

 or rarely with a short awn. 2/ 



* * Floicers in densely contracted panicles (ind therefore seeming to he 

 spicdtc. 



t- Awn borne hue down on the hack of one or two palets. 



Anthoxdnthum 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 ])arcli- 

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

 investing the grain. "^ 



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

 abundantly into meadows E.; flowering in spring; 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 pistU. 21 



-t- I- 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°-^^ 

 high, with green roughish head, o'-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 flrmer texture than the thin and truncate awnless flowering 

 glumes. 21 



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

 fodder, 8--;j^' high, with rather large leaves, a compound or interrupted 

 .so-called spike, wliich is evidently a contracted panicle, sometimes ()'-9' 

 long, and nodding when ripe ; bristles short and few in a clu.ster ; 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 ISIillet. 



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

 grass North and East is June Grass or Kenliicky Blue Grass, already 

 described, and it is the commonest basis of old pastiires. Itedtop 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 often fni ml 

 in laions. Other common lawn and pasture Gras!<rs are the foll(>wi)ig : 



* Floicers in open panicles. 



Agr6stis canina, Linn. Brown Bent, Rhode Island Bent. A 



veiy dwarf line grass, makingaden.se close sod upon poor .soils; culms 

 8'-2'^ high ; root leaves involute-bristle-form, but tliose of the culm flat ; 



