HAIRY MUSKIT POINTED SLENDER GRASS. 161 



parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and, to some extent, in 

 Tennessee, and where used, has given much satisfaction. 

 It is the grass of the northern and western prairies, and is 

 very nutritious. In the absence of grasses better suited to 

 this climate, the Muskit might become a very popular 

 grass, but such is not the case. Great quantities of it are 

 annually cut and sold as prairie hay. It would be well for 

 some enterprising farmer to experiment with it. 



POINTED SLENDER, Gr'RABS.(Leptochloa mucr&nata.) 



This is an annual, growing from two to three feet high, and flowers 

 in August. Sheaths hairy; spikes from twenty or more, two or three 

 inches long, in a long panicle-like raceme; glumes pointed, about equal- 

 ing the three or four awnless flowers. 



It grows in fields and pastures and affords a small 

 amount of grazing during the hot months; while the 

 regular pasture grasses are parched up with heat. But it 

 is not of much agricultural value in the presence of so 

 many others that are successfully grown. 



ANNUAL SPEAR GRASS-GOOSE GRASS-(Poa annua.) 



Spikelets ovate, crowded, three to seven flowered; panicle one-sided 

 often; stems spreading, flattened, tufted; lower palea more or less 

 hairy on the nerves below; leaves of a bright green, sword-shaped, flat, 

 often crumpled on the margin, smooth on both surfaces, rough at the 

 edges; seeds oblong, free; glumes shorter than the flowers. 



This is one of the species of the valuable genus Poa to 

 which blue grass belongs, and is a very common grass on 

 all our swards, and known as Goose Grass. It is so very 

 , like blue grass that, to a casual observer, it would be 

 taken for it. But the florets are not webbed, and in blue 

 grass the roots are creeping, while this is tufted. It is a 

 valuable grazing grass and sows itself. It is a common pas- 

 ture grass of the Northern States, and is highly prized. It 

 flowers through the whole summer, unless dried up by a 

 drought, to which it easily yields. It forms the principle 

 grazing of the Unaka Mountains, in Tennessee. 

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