60 THE GRASSES 



them, a few species are selected and analyzed, such as are 

 known to everybody. 



1. Timothy. First described properly by the Swedish 

 botanist, Carolus Linnaeus. A type of grass inhabiting North 

 and Middle Europe, and made up by fourteen different 

 forms, resembling one another so closely that they suggest 

 to the observer a close relationship. To the aggregate Lin- 

 naeus applied the name Phleurn. To one particular phleum 

 that shows a predilection for pasture lands, he gave the spe- 

 cific name "pratense." Meadow Cats-tail or Timothy grass. 

 It is a botanical practice to put after the name of the plant 

 also the name of the botanist who first discovered it. There- 

 fore, Phleum pratense, L. 



Select a flowering specimen from the meadows, but one 

 from the haystack may do as well. It is tall ; (not branch- 

 ing laterally.) The flowering or top end is called " inflo- 

 rescence." The spike is cylindrical and tolerably long, 

 therefore an elongated spike ; it is also dense and harsh. It 

 is terminal and solitary, sometimes spikes are terminal, 

 spreading and numerous, like in the Crab grass, digitate like 

 in the Bermuda or barn-yard grass. They are lateral some- 

 times, sessile or peduncled. If arranged shortening toward 

 the apex like the tassel of the Indian corn, this is called a 

 pyramidal raceme. If instead of shortening toward the 

 apex they are of about equal length, arranged around their 

 rachis like in that delicate reddish grass by some called 

 " old man's beard," that abounds late in the season in gar- 

 den plots and corn fields, (Leptochloa mucronata) then we 

 say the spikes are racemed. 



The manner in which the single flowers, spikelets, are ar- 

 ranged along the spike is also very different. 



In this species the spikelets are closely clustered in glom- 

 erules of 3-4 nearly sessile, densely joining one another at- 

 tached to the rachis or main axis of inflorescence. In the mea- 

 dow Fox-tail (Alopecurus pratensis) which greatly resembles 



