CHAPTER I. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE COMMON GRASSES. 



Group I. Characteristically Coloured 

 Grasses. 



RYEGRASSES AND MEADOW FESCUE. 



Select those shoots whose bases appear i. 

 strikingly red. 



The underground part of the shoot is flat 

 perennial ryegrass. 



The underground part is not flat, but perfectly 

 round Italian ryegrass or meadow fescue. 



If the pasture is old, Italian must have died out, 

 and the round-shooted grass is, in all probability, 

 meadow fescue. Tall fescue has all the characters 

 of meadow fescue, and, botanically, is merely a luxuri- 

 ant variety of it. 



By the aid of a pocket lens, it is perfectly easy 

 to distinguish between ryegrasses and fescue. Corre- 

 sponding to each rib on the surface of the blade, 

 there is a vein. The veins are either surrounded 

 by the green tissue in which they are embedded, 

 or they extend from the upper to the lower surface 

 of the blade in the one case, dimly distinguished 

 by the aid of the lens ; in the other, appearing as 

 pure white lines. When, therefore, a leaf blade is 

 held up to the light (the upper surface towards the 



