THE GRASS FAMILY, GRAMINE&. 



There are among the true Grasses not only most valuable fodder plants, 

 besides all of the cereal grains, but also several bad weeds, the occurrence 

 of which in fields is directly due to the sowing of their seeds mixed with 

 grain or other crop seeds. Among the most injurious annual grasses are 

 Wild Oats and the Poison Darnel [Plate 51]. Chess, Bromus secalinus, L., 

 is a biennial and is often abundant in fields of fall wheat, particularly where 

 there is a thin stand of the grain plants. Of perennial grasses which are 

 troublesome, the worst are : the notorious Couch or Quack Grass [Plate 46] 

 of the East; and the Sweet Grass [Plate 49], Skunk-tail Grass [Plate 47] and 

 Spear Grass, Stipa spartea, Trin., of the West. 



CHESS, Bromus secalinus, L., is an introduced biennial which is hardier 

 than wheat, and where young plants of fall wheat have been killed out by 

 the winter, Chess plants growing among the wheat from seeds sown with the 

 grain, are seldom injured, but flourish to such an extent that some farmers 

 have been led to the erroneous conclusion that Chess has originated from 

 wheat plantlets which have been injured in various ways. It has, however, 

 been proved conclusively that Chess is an entirely distinct grass which can 

 grow only from its own kind of seeds ; moreover, these seeds [Plate 56, fig. 78 

 natural size and enlarged 4 times] always have upon them a husk with a row 

 of bristles down each side of the groove, by which as well as by their shape 

 they may be easily distinguished from those of wheat. All doubters are 

 recommended to dig up some plants of Chess as soon as they are recognizable 

 in their fields, when they will find that the seeds from which the Chess plants 

 began to grow the previous autumn, are still attached to the roots and that 

 these are very different from grains of wheat. , 



86 



