77 



long and five to ten flowered, the flowers being usually much com- 

 pressed. The outer glumes are smooth, narrow, and keeled ; the 

 flowering ones are broader, keeled, acute, rather rigid, and faintly 

 many-nerved. The palets have an infolded margin, the keels prom- 

 inent or narrowly winged. The pistillate spikelets are more con- 

 densed and more rigid than the staminate. Altho.ugh this cannot 

 be considered a first-rate grass for agricultural purposes, it is freely 

 cut with other marsh grasses, and on the alkaline plains of the Rocky 

 Mountains it. affords an inferior pasturage. 



Dactylis, Linn. 



Spikelets three to five flowered, in dense fascicles or glomerate- 

 clusters at the ends of the short branches of a close, short panicle. 

 Outer glumes unequal, lanceolate, acute, rigid, with hyaline margins, 

 keeled, one to three nerved ; flowering glumes larger,, more rigid r 

 keeled, five-nerved, mucronate or bristle-pointed, ciliate on the keel ;. 

 palet little shorter than its glume, narrower and thinner, two-keeled. 

 1. D. glomerata, Linn. Orchard grass. Cultivated. 



This is one of the most popular meadow grasses of Europe, and is 

 well known to most farmers in the Northern and Eastern States. It 

 is a perennial, of strong, rank growth, about 3 feet high, the culm 

 and leaves roughish, the leaves broadly linear, light green, and five 

 to six on the culm. The panicle is generally but 2 or 3 inches long,, 

 the upper part dense from the shortness of the branches ; the lower 

 branches are longer and spreading, but with the spikelets glomerated 

 or closely tufted. The spikelets are usually three to four flowered,, 

 one-sided, and on short, rough pedicels. The glumes are pointed 

 and somewhat unequal, the upper one being smaller and thinner 

 than the lower. The flowering glumes are ovate-lanceolate, rough-, 

 ish, and ending in a sharp point or short awn, and are rather longer 

 than the outer glumes. 



Professor Phares, of Mississippi, says : 



Of all grasses this is one of the most widely diffused, growing in Africa, Asia, 

 every country of Europe, and all our States. It is more highly esteemed and com- 

 mended than any other grass by a larger number of farmers in most countries, a 

 most decided proof of its great value and wonderful adaptation to many soils, 

 climates, and treatments. Yet, strange to say, though growing in England for many 

 centuries, it was not appreciated in that country till carried there from Virginia in 

 1764. But, as in the case of timothy grass, soonafter its introduction from America, 

 it came into high favor among farmers, and still retains its hold on their estimation. 



