54 



1. C. canescens, ■ Beauv. Introduced on Ballast ground, Philadel- 

 phia. 



Holcus, Linn. 



Spikelets two-flowered, crowded in an open panicle, the lower 

 flower perfect, the upper one male only, und with a minute hairy 

 rhachilla or rudiment at its base. Outer glumes nearly equal, com- 

 pressed, membranaceous, large (fully inclosing the two flowers;) 

 flowering glumes half shorter, the lowest awnless, the upper with a 

 short dorsal awn. 



1. H. lanatus, Linn. Velvet grass, Velvet Mesquite, Soft grass. 



Introduced from Europe. 

 A foreign grass, which has been introduced and has become tol- 

 erably well established in many places. It is a perennial, with a 

 stout, erect culm, 2 to 3 feet high, the leaves, and especially the 

 sheaths, densely clothed with soft hairs feeling like velvet. The 

 culm is leafy and the sheaths loose ; the upper ones longer than the 

 blade, which is three to six lines wide, 4 to 5 inches long, and rather 

 abruptly pointed. The panicle is open and spreading, rather oblong 

 in outline, and 4 to 6 inches long. It is not held in good repute as 

 an agricultural grass in Europe. In this country, especially at the 

 South, it has frequently been favorably spoken of. Professor 

 Phares says: 



It luxuriates in moist, peaty lands, but will grow on poor, sandy, or clay hill 

 lands, and produce remunerative crops where few other plants will make anything. 

 It has been cultivated in North Carolina on such land, and after cutting and allowed 

 to grow again, plowed under with so much advantage that other crops were subse- 

 quently produced. Hon. H. W. L. Lewis, of Louisiana, has cultivated this grass 

 many years with great satisfaction. It is by no means the best of our grasses, but 

 best for some lands, and on such lands more profitable than other grasses. It seems 

 to have been greatly improved by acclimating in Texas and other Southern States, 

 and this is true of some of the other grasses and forage plants. 



2. H. mollis, Linn. Introduced on Ballast ground, Philadelphia. 



Dupontia, R. Br. 



Spikelets in a contracted panicle, purplish, 2 to 3 flowered, outer 

 glumes about equal, awnless, scarious, three-nerved, compressed, 

 acute or produced at the apex, as long as the spikelet ; flowering 

 glumes awnless, scarious, three-nerved, each with a thin ring of 

 short hairs at the base, palet narrow, two-nerved. 



