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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
DIVISION OF AGROSTOLOGY, 
Washington, D. C., July 15, 1896. 
SIR: I submit herewith for publication as a bulletin of this Division 
an enumeration of the true grasses useful for food, for hay, for pas- 
tures, for lawns, for ornament, for paper making, ete., both of this and 
other countries. The different kinds are arranged in alphabetical 
order by the initial letter of their Latin names. "There is appended a 
list of the common or local English names of all the grasses enumer- 
ated, so far as I have been able to obtain them. "These English names 
are arranged alphabetically, the Latin equivalent being given in each 
case, under which the grass is described. There is much confusion 
in the use of English names for grasses. Many of these names are 
purely local, and oftentimes the same grass is known in one locality 
by one name and in another section by another. In parts of the 
South “blue grass” is applied to any native pasture grass which has 
a good, luxuriant growth and is readily eaten by stock. It is most com- 
monly applied, however, to Poa pratensis, or “Kentucky blue grass.” 
"This grass is called “green grass" by some in Pennsylvania, and 
“Spear grass” or “June grass” by many in New England. In Austra- 
lia “blue grass" is applied to a species of Andropogon. Inthe West and 
in the Rocky Mountain region we have the names “bunch grass” and 
“buffalo grass," each applied indiscriminately to several species, The 
term “bunch grass” is applied to a great number of kinds which grow 
in bunches and do not make a continuous sod. In Montana the name 
* buffalo grass" is applied to Bouteloua oligostachya, and in Australia 
Stenotaphrum americanum is called “buffalo grass.” In the Southwest 
the several species of Bouteloua are called grama. This term is also 
applied to other grasses, being somewhat generic in character and 
employed to designate any good grazing grass which becomes gray with 
age. Very many of the species of grasses of the Northwest which 
are of undoubted agricultural value have received no popular English 
names, and I have not included them in this enumeration. There are 
many species of Agrostis, of Festuca, and particularly of Poa, growing 
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