80, THE SPEAR GRASSES. 



32. Brizopyrum. Spike Orasa. 



Large flowers and spikelets, compressed and crowded 

 in a dense spiked panicle. Leaves crowded on tiie 

 stems, folded, and mostly rigid. 



Spike Grass (^Brizopyrum spicatum) is a salt-marsh 

 grass, with culms or stems in tufts from creeping root- 

 stalks, from ten to eighteen inches high. Flowers in 

 August. 



33. PoA. Spear Grasses. 



Spikelets ovate, compressed, flowers two to ten in 

 an open panicle ; glumes shorter than the flowers ; 

 lower palea compressed, keeled, pointless, five-nerved ; 

 stamens two or three, seed oblong, free ; stems tufted ; 

 leaves smooth, flat, and soft. 



Annual Spear Grass {Poa annua), Fig. 1, is, per- 

 haps, the most common of all our grasses. Its stems 

 are spreading, flattened, panicle often one-sided, spike- 

 lets crowded, three to seven flowered; lower palea more 

 or less hairy on the nerves below ; leaves of a light 

 green, sword-shaped, flat, often crumpled at the margins, 

 as appears in the figure, smooth on both surfaces, rough 

 at the edges. Florets not webbed, and this distinguishes 

 it from the June grass {Poa pratensis) and its varieties. 

 The oiiter or lower palea of this grass has no hairs on 

 the lateral ribs, as the poa pratensis has. This modest 

 and beautiful grass flowers throughout the whole sum- 

 mer, and forms a very large part of the sward of New 

 England pastures, producing an early and sweet feed, 

 exceedingly relished by cattle. It does not resist the 

 drought very well, but becomes parched up. 



The Wavy Meadow Grass {Poa laxa) occurs rarely, 

 on high and rocky hills in New England, New York, 

 and northern latitudes. Of no agricultural value. 



