Illustrated Descriptions of the Grasses 



or with their backs to the stem, while in Couch-grass the spikelets 

 are closely placed with their sides against the axis of the spike. 



Couch-grass grows with the ~ 



energy of the 

 fabled hydra, 

 and where one 



of the dark green stems is cut, half 

 a dozen rise to take its place. This 

 grass and the Johnson Grass of the 

 South have the most extensive system of 

 creeping or, more expressively, running 

 rootstocks of any of the inland grasses. 

 The strong, white subterranean stems of 

 Couch-grass form a network and send off 

 innumerable sharp-pointed shoots, which in 

 the garden often pierce roots and tubers and 

 seem to prefer to grow through any permeable 

 object rather than to turn aside. This grass 

 is the worst enemy of the farmer among his 

 cultivated acres, as each breaking of the 

 ground's surface by sharp-edged tools serves 

 only to cut and scatter the roots, each frag- 

 ment of which, seemingly, "hath in it a Prop- 

 ertie and Spirit, hastily to get up and spread." 

 This quality of the plant suggested to Charles 

 Dudley Warner while spending his "Summer 

 in a Garden" the idea of offering Couch-grass 

 to the clergy as an example of total depravity, 

 yet insatiable ambition seems the chief charac- 

 teristic of this plant, whose merits are recog- 

 nized in its tenacity of life through drouth 

 and on sandy soils, as well as in the nutritious 

 hay yielded, while the long rootstocks are 

 valuable in binding the loose soil of railway 

 embankments. On pasture lands of the North- 

 western States other species of the genus furnish 

 an important part of the native grasses. 



Bearded Wheat-grass {Agropyron caninum) , p^ 

 less common in the East, is unlike Couch- 

 grass in the absence of rootstocks, in the 



237 



Couch-grass 

 A&ropyron re pens 



