92 BLUE GEASS. 



the middle ; leaves short, bluish-green ; panicle dense 

 and contracted, expanding more at flowering ; short 

 branches often in pairs, covered with four to nine 

 flowered, flat spikelets ; flowers rather obtuse, linear, 

 hairy below on the keel ; ligule short and blunt ; height 

 about a foot. It is very common on dry, sandy, thin 

 soils and banks, so hardy as to grow on the thin, hard 

 soils covering the surface of rocks, along trodden walks, 

 or gravelly knolls. 



Blue grass shoots its leaves early, but the amount of 

 its foliage is not large ; otherwise it would be one of our 

 most valuable grasses, since it possesses a large per 

 cent, of nutritive matter. Flowers in July. Most 

 grazing animals eat it greedily ; cows feeding on it pro- 

 duce a very rich milk and fine-flavored butter, and it is 

 especially relished by sheep. Its bluish-green stems 

 retain their color after the seed is ripe. It shrinks less 

 in drying than most other grasses, and consequently 

 makes a hay very heavy in proportion to its bulk. It 

 is an exceedingly valuable pasture grass on dry, rocky 

 knolls, and should form a portion of a mixture for such 

 soils. This should not be confounded with Kentucky 

 blue grass, alluded to above. 



34. Eragrostis. 



Spikelets two to seventy flowered ; lower pale three- 

 nerved, not hairy at the base, like Poa, the upper 

 remaining on the entire rachis after the rest of the 

 flowers have fallen ofi'. Stems often branching. 



Creeping Meadow Grass {Eragrostis reptans), Pig. 60, 

 is often found on the gravelly banks of rivers, from New 

 England to the Western States. It grows from six to 

 fifteen inches high, is annual, and flowers in August. 

 It is a delicate and beautiful grass, with short, nearly 

 ^wl-shaped leaves, smooth, long spikelets, loose sheaths, 



