134 SEEDS OF SWEET-SCENTED VERNAL. 



The aftermath or fall growth of this beautiful grass is 

 said to be richer in nutritive qualities than the growth 

 of the spring. Though it is pretty generally diffused 

 over the country, it is only on certain soils that it takes 

 complete possession of the surface, and forms the pre- 

 dominant grass in a permanent turf. 



A curious and beautiful peculiarity is exhibited in the 

 seeds of this grass, by which they are prevented from 

 germinating in wet weather, after approaching maturity, 

 and thus becoming abortive. The husks of the blossom 

 adhering to the seed when ripe, and the jointed awn by 

 its spiral contortions, when affected by the alternate 

 moisture and dryness of the atmosphere, act like levers 

 to separate and lift it out from the calyx, even before 

 the grass is bent or lodged, and while the spike is still 

 erect. If the hand is moistened, and the- seeds placed 

 in it ; they will appear to move like insects, from the 

 uncoiling of the spiral twist of the awns attached to 

 them. 



The flowers of the sweet-scented vernal grass are 

 seen in Figs. 116 and 117. There are nine hundred 

 and twenty-three thousand two hundred seeds in a 

 pound, and eight pounds in a bushel. It cannot be said 

 to belong to the grasses useful for general cultivation. 



55. PHALARIS. Canary Grass. 



Spikelets crowded in a dense spiked panicle, with 

 two neutral rudiments of a flower, one on each side, at 

 the base of the flattish perfect one; awnless; two shining 

 pales, shorter than the equal boat-shaped glumes, closely 

 enclosing the smooth, flattened grain ; stamens three. 



REED CANARY GRASS (Plialaris arundinacea) has a 

 panicle very slightly branched, clustered, somewhat 

 spreading when old, but not so much generally, as ap- 

 pears in Fig. 118; glumes wingless, rudimentary florets 



