BLACK MOUNTAIN RICE. 55 



out any manure, twenty-five or thirty years ago, is now 

 overrun with beach grass, and will produce nothing 

 else. If the dead grass is burnt off in the spring, it 

 will make a pretty good pasture for cattle and horses. 

 It keeps green longer than any other grass we have. 

 It can be cultivated from the seed or by transplanting. 

 Our loose, sandy beaches are the most suitable for its 

 growth." 



Beach grass seems to require the assistance of some 

 disturbing causes to enable it to attain its full perfec- 

 tion. The driving winds in some localities are suffi- 

 cient, while in other places, where it does not thrive 

 so well, it is probable that an iron-tooth harrow would 

 greatly improve and aid its growth. It has been exten- 

 sively cultivated or propagated from the seed on many 

 parts of Cape Cod, on Nantucket, and in fact to con- 

 siderable extent all along our coast. It comes in of 

 itself along Nantasket beach from seed, borne by the 

 tides, probably, from the Cape. It has been extensively 

 used, at times, in this country, for the manufacture of 

 coarse paper, though, if I am rightly informed, its man- 

 ufacture has been discontinued in Massachusetts. In 

 other countries it is manufactured into door-mats and 

 brushes, mats for pack-saddles, meal-bags, and hats, and 

 into ropes for various purposes. 



13. Oeyzopsis. Mountain Rice.. 



Spikelets greenish and rather large, one-flowered ; 

 glumes several-nerved, nearly equal, awnless, longer 

 than the oblong flower; scales linear, long as the ovary; 

 inflorescence in narrow panicles. 

 " Black Mountain Rice ( Oryzopsis melanocarpa) is a 

 common grass in dry, rocky woods, with a leafy stem 

 from two to three feet high, a simple panicle, paless or 

 husks of the seed blackish when ripe, the lower one 



