47 



Agrostis caiiiua. 



A grass usually of low size, 6 to 12 inches high, with slender culms, 

 and a light, flexible, expanded panicle, and with a perplexing variety 

 of forms. There are several varieties growing in mountainous regions 

 throughout the United States, and in Europe. It forms a close sod, 

 and affords considerable pasturage in those regions. It is probably one 

 of the grasses called Rhode Island bent grass. 



Agrostis exarata. 



This is chiefly a northwestern species, being found in Wisconsin and westward to 

 the Rocky Mountains, also from British America and California to Alaska. It is 

 very variable in appearance, and presents several varieties. It is generally more 

 slender in growth than the common redtop. The panicle is usually longer, narrower, 

 and looser. In all the forms the palet is wanting or is very minute. The form chietly 

 growing on the Pacific slope from California to Alaska is often more robust than the 

 Agrostis vulffaris, growing 2 to 3 feet high, with a stout, firm culm, clothed with three 

 or four broadish leaves, 4 to 6 inches long. The panicle is 4 to G inches long, pale 

 green, rather loose, but with erect branches. 



It deserves trial for cultivation, at least on the Pacific side of the con- 

 tinent, (Plate 49.) 



CINNA. 



Spikelets one-flowered, much flattened, in an open, spreading panicle ; outer glumes 

 lanceolate, acute, strongly keeled, hispid on the keel, the upper somewhat longer 

 than the lower; flowering glume manifestly stalked above the outer glumes, about 

 the same length as the outer ones, three-nerved, short-awned on the back near the 

 apex ; palet nearly as long as its glume, only one-nerved (probably by the consolida- 

 tion of two, Bentham); stamen one. A sterile pedicel sometimes present. 



Cimia arundinacea (Wood Reed Grass). 



A perennial grass, with erect simple culms from 3 to 6 feet high, and a creeping 

 rhizorna; growing in swamps and moist, shaded woods in northern or mountainous 

 districts. The leaves are broadly linear lanceolate, about 1 foot long, 4 to 6 lines 

 wide, and with a conspicuous elongated ligule. The panicle is from 6 to 12 inches 

 long, rather loose and open in the flower, afterwards more close. 



This leafy-stemmed grass furnishes a large quantity of fodder, but 

 experiments are wanting to determine its availability under cultivation. 



(Plate 50.) 

 China peiidula. 



This species is more slender, with a looser drooping panicle and more 

 capillary branches, and with thinner glumes. It occurs in the same 

 situations as the preceding, and is more common in the Kocky Mount- 

 ains and Oregon. 



AMMOPHILA. 



Spikelets one-flowered, in a contracted, spike-like or open, diffuse panicle, with or 

 without a bristle-like rudiment opposite the palet; outer glumes largr. nearly equn!, 

 rigid, thick, lanceolate, acute, keeled, five-nerved; flowering glume similar in text 

 about equal in length, sometimes mucronate at the apex; palet as long as its glara 

 of similar texture, two-keeled, sulcate between the keels; hairs at the base of 

 flower usually scanty and short. 



