630 GRAMINE^E. (GRASS FAMILY.) 



7. P. pratensis, L. (Green or Common Meadow-Grass. Kentucky 



Blue-Grass.) Culms sending oft' copious running roolstocks from the base, and 

 the sheaths smooth ; ligule short and blunt ; panicle short-pyramidal ; spikeltts 3-5- 

 flovvered, crowded, and most of them almost sessile on the branches, ovate-lanceo- 

 late or ovate ; lower palet b-nerved, hairy along the margins as well as the keel. — 

 Common in dry soil : imported for pastures and meadows. Indigenous in 

 mountain regions from N. Penn. northward. May -July. (Eu.) 



8. P. trivialis, L. (Roughish Meadow-Grass. ) Culms erect from a 

 somewhat decumbent base, but no distinct running rootstocks ; sheaths and leaves 

 more or less rough ; ligule oblong, acute ; panicle longer or with the branches more 

 distant ; spikelets mostly 3-flowered, broader upwards ; lower palet prominently 

 b-nerved, naked at the margins: otherwise nearly as in the preceding. — Moist 

 meadows, &c, July. (Nat. from Eu.) 



-t- -t- Spikelets fewer and more scattered, on slender pedicels: plants soft and smooth, 



flowering early. (No running roolstocks, except in No. 13.) 

 ■*+ Spikelets small (l"-2" long), pale green, rather loosely 2 - 4-ftowered : flowers 



oblong, obtuse : lower palet scarcely scarious-tipped : culm-leaves lance-linear, acute, 



V-3' long. 



9. P. sylvestris, Gray. Culm flatfish, erect; branches of the oblong-pyram- 

 idal panicle short, numerous, in fives or more ; lower palet villous on the keel for 

 its whole length, and on the margins below the middle, sparingly webbed at the base. 

 — Rocky woods and meadows, W. New York, Penn. and Virginia to Wisconsin, 

 Kentucky, and southward. June. 



10. P. d6bilis, Torr. Culms terete, weak ; branches of the small panicle 

 few and slender (the lower 1^' -2' long to the few spikelets), in pairs and threes; 

 flowers very obtuse, smooth and glabrous, except a sparing web at their base. — 

 Rocky woodlands, Rhode Island and N. New York to Wisconsin. May. 



*+ ++ Spikelets 2" long, light green: oblong-lanceolate flowers and both glumes acute. 



11. P. alsodos, Gray. Leaves rather narrowly linear, acute, the upper- 

 most (2^' - 4' long) often sheathing the base of the narrow and loose panicle, the 

 capillary branches of which are appressed when young, and mostly in threes or 

 fours ; lower palet very obscurely nerved, villous on the keel below, and with a 

 narrow cobwebby tuft at its base, otherwise glabrous. (P. nemoralis, Torr. Sf 

 Ed. 1 : but wholly different from the European species of that name.) — Woods, 

 on hillsides, New England to Penn. and Wisconsin. May, June. 



++++++ Spikelets larger (3" -4" long), pale green, rarely purple-tinged, feiv and 

 scattered at the extremity of the long and capillary branches (mostly in pairs or 

 threes) of the very diffuse panicle: flowers 3-6, loose, oblong and obtuse, as is 

 the larger glume: loiver palet conspicuously scarious at the apex, villous below the 

 middle on the keel and margins: culms flatfish, smooth. 



12. P. flexudsa, Muhl. (not ofWahl.) Culms l°-3° high, tufted; its 

 leaves all linear (2' -5' long) and gradually taper-pointed; panicle very effuse (its 

 branches 2' -4' long to the 4 - 6-flowered spikelets or first ramification) ; lower 

 palet prominently nerved, no web at the base. (P. autumnalis, Muhl. in Ell. P. 

 campyle, Schult.) — Dry woods, Virginia, Kentucky, and southward. Feb. - 

 May. — Wrongly confounded with the last, but near it. P. autumnalis is an 



