AGRICULTURE AND PLANTING. 49 



On Natural G r asses. 



unilateral, linear-lanceolate, sharp-pointed, flat, striated, above and on the mar- 

 gin rough. Sheaths strirt, nervose, smooth. Stipule v-eiy short. Spike suber^ct, 

 two or three inches long. .Glumes all lance-subulate, acuminate, often awned, 

 with awns of different length. Midrib now and then hl/sute. Interior glume.> 

 ciliated. Floscules vary from three to eight in number. 



This grass, as a weed, is well known to be one of the greatest enemies which 

 the farmer has to encounter. It is very bad herbage, and it makes the coarsest hay. 

 X. IIoLcus Lanatus. JVooly Holciis, or Meadow soft Grass. 



Cat. bivalve, two-flowered, with the alternate flower male. Cor. bivalve, the 

 exterior valve awned. 



Ho LOUS with villose glumes, hermaphrodite flower mutic, the male furpished 

 with an arcuato-recurvate awn. 



Perennial, flowering in June and July. 



Root fibrose, turfy. Culms several, erect, striated, leafy, backwardly. villose, 

 smooth at the tip. Leaves flat, pale, soft, more villose beneatli. Stipule truncated, 

 short, denticulated. Panicle erect, spread out, soft, pruple-whitish, at length 

 growing paler; branchlets semiverticillate, very much branched, capillary, vil- 

 lose. Calycine glumes of equal length, sharp-pointed, villose, now and then 

 tuberculated, coloured ; the interior broader, three-nerved. Floscules inserted on 

 a common footstalk, but the male above the hermaphrodite, shorter than calyx, 

 naked at the base, with strong, smooth, glossy glumes, the exterior widest. 

 From the exterior glume of the male flower rises an awn, which is presently ar- 

 cuate-recurved, included by the calyx. Anthers the length of corol. 



The abortive pistil detected by Curtis, I have seen in some male flowers, 

 but not in all. 



This grass, like the former, is very bad herbage,-afid it makes the coarsest 

 of all hay. 



The last nine grasses belong to Class III. Triandria. Order Digynia. 



N 



