KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS. 87 



This grass is seen in Fig. 56, while Fig. 57 represents 

 a flower somewhat magnified. 



It is a valuable grass to cultivate in moist, sheltered 

 soils, possessing very considerable nutritive qualities, 

 coming to perfection at a desirable time, and being ex- 

 ceedingly relished by cattle, horses, and sheep. For 

 suitable soils it should form a portion of seed sown, 

 producing, in mixture with other grasses, which serve 

 to shelter it, a large yield of hay, above the average of 

 grass usually grown on a similar soil. Seven pounds 

 of seed to the acre will produce a good sward. The 

 grass is said to lose about seventy per cent, of its 

 weight in drying. Its hay contains about one and sixty 

 hundredths per cent, of azote, and the nutritive quali- 

 ties of the lattermath are said to exceed very consider- 

 ably those of the crop cut in the flower or in the seed. 



GREEN MEADOW GRASS, JUNE GRASS, COMMON SPEAR 

 GRASS, KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS, &c. (Poa pratensis). 

 Lower florets connected at the base by a web of long, 

 silky filaments, holding the calyx ; outer palea five- 

 ribbed, marginal ribs hairy ; upper sheath longer than 

 its leaf; height from ten to fifteen inches; root peren- 

 nial, creeping ; stem erect, smooth and round ; leaves 

 linear, flat, acute, roughish on the edges and inner sur- 

 face ; panicle diffuse, spreading, erect. The plant is of 

 a light-green color, the spikelets frequently variegated 

 with brownish purple. Introduced, and probably indig- 

 enous to some parts of the country. Flowers in June. 

 Fig. 58 represents this grass, and Fig. 59 a flower mag- 

 nified. 



This is an early grass, very common in the soils of 

 New England and the West, in pastures and fields, con- 

 stituting a considerable portion of the turf. It varies 

 very much in size and appearance, according to the soil 

 on which it grows. In Kentucky it is universally 



