74 THE GENERA AND THEIR SPECIES. 



stolons rooting at intervals. Stem erect, smooth, striated ; 

 nodes smooth. Leaves rolled in bud, bases of radical leaves 

 purplish, stem leaves dark green, roughish ; ribs of upper sur- 

 face prominent and flat. Sheaths smooth, longer than leaf, 

 uppermost twice as long as leaf, rather loose ; underground 

 sheaths purplish ; ligule thick, shorter than broad, blunt, hairy 

 on back. Spike silvery grey, dense and fusiform, apex pointed, 

 base obtuse. Spikelets flat, elliptical, crowded, overlapping, 

 numerous, with one floret. Glumes equal, acute, slightly joined 

 at base, hairy on keel, awnless. Outer palea smaller than glumes, 

 two green ribs on each side, awned from middle of back, awn 

 silky, bent, very long ; inner palea generally absent, and when 

 present sometimes awned. Anthers long and rosy. 



Meadow Foxtail is the only valuable agricultural grass of the 

 genus. It possesses quality, quantity, and earliness, and is 

 most productive on clay and loamy soils. In many pastures it 

 is the principal grass, its herbage being so abundant in proportion 

 to its stalk. It is good as pasture and as hay, and yields an 

 excellent aftermath. It does well in wet meadows, thrives under 

 irrigation, perishes when there is no drainage, and though hardly 

 touched by frost, rots at the roots when beaten down by much 

 rain. As ripening diminishes its bulk it is cut when in flower. 

 The seed, greyish brown, darker on one side, is very light. 

 Sinclair found that a bushel of it weighed only 12 pounds, and 

 calculated that there were 3,724,380 seeds to each bushel. Nearly 

 two-thirds of the grain is eaten by insects, and to save this it is 

 generally collected early in the year. It was one of the first seeds 

 to be sown for pasture purposes by the British farmer. 



20. A. geniculates. Ditches, pools and swampy places in 

 Europe and Temperate Asia. June to September. Root peren- 

 nial, fibres long. Stem decumbent, then erect, bent at nodes, 

 striated, smooth, leafy, branched, occasionally bulbous; nodes 

 smooth. Leaves broad, flat, roughish, pointed, ribs prominent 

 and acute. Sheaths long, smooth, and slightly tumid ; ligule thin 

 and oblong. Spike fusiform, dense, purplish, under two inches 

 in length. Spikelets ovate, compressed, numerous, with one 



