8 BULLETIN 692, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGETCULTURE. 



The name redtop in New England commonly applies to Agrostis 

 vulgaris and not to Agrostis alba , which formerly at least was known 

 generally as white bent or whitetop. 



Among the common names that have been apphed in New England 

 to Rhode Island bent are the following: Rhode Island grass, fine 

 agrostis, fine bent, furzetop, Burden (or Burden's) grass, and small 

 redtop. 



Occasional plants of Rhode Island bent possess an awn to the 

 floret, - This form has been named Agrostis alba aristata Gray. It 

 is much less common than the unawned Rhode Island bent, and 

 Hitchcock (6) speaks of it as "scarcely more than a form of Agrostis 

 alba vulgaris." This variety has never been cultivated except as its 

 seed was indirectly mixed with true Rhode Island bent. 



Agrostis alba aristata Gray breeds true or nearly so. Jenkins (8) 

 reports an experiment in which nine plants were grown from awned 

 seeds. In aU cases the resultant plants had at least some of their 

 florets awned, but in about one-third of the panicles there were but 

 few awned florets, and in six panicles no awns could be detected. 



The problem as to whether Rhode Island bent and its awned 

 variety are native in America or were introduced from Europe is 

 difficult. Their widespread abundance in New England argues in 

 favor of their nativity, but other undoubtedly introduced perennial 

 grasses are quite as widespread and abundant, such as Bermuda 

 grass and Johnson grass in the South, bluegrass over much of the 

 northeastern quarter of the United States, and velvet grass in the 

 Pacific Northwest. To a less degree timothy, orchard grass, redtop, 

 and other grasses show the same phenomenon. 



If Rhode Island bent were native, it should show geographical con- 

 tinuity either northeastward through Labrador and Greenland or 

 northwestward through Alaska. In the case of Old World plants 

 undoubtedly native in New England, one or the other of these lines 

 of natural distribution is evident. The distribution of Rhode Island 

 bent does not accord with either of the two possible routes of natural 

 spread, which argues in favor of the grass being introduced by man. 



Prof. M. L. Femald, of Harvard University, whose long and inti- 

 mate knowledge of the northeastern American flora makes his testi- 

 mony of special value, writes— 



I am now ready to state that Agrostis vulgaris is in all probability an introduced, 

 though very extensively naturalized, grass. I can find no evidence of it in the more 

 remote and essentially untrodden areas in the interior of Newfoundland or Gaspe, 

 although in the neighborhood of settlements the plant has taken fi-eely to primitive 

 habitat. Variety aristata I should call unquestionably indigenous, though I have 

 occasionally found it growing by roadsides or in the turf of lawns. Its chief habitats, 

 however, are the absolutely imtouched woodlands and thickets. 



