64 FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 



Quality of seed: The seed is yellowish-brown in bulk, some- 

 what dull and a little darker than that of Kentucky Blue Grass; 

 otherwise the seeds are very similar in the trade. Generally Cana- 

 dian Blue Grass seeds are blunter, with a broad end, and the side 

 nerves of the glumes are wanting or indistinct. 



The legal weight of a bushel of seed is fourteen pounds. 



KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS {Poa pratensis L.) 



Plate lo; Seed, Plate 26, Fig. 16. 



Other English names: Blue Grass, June Grass, Spear Grass, English 

 Grass, Green Grass, Bird Grass, Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass, 

 Common Meadow Grass. 



Botanical description : Kentucky Blue Grass is perennial with 

 a widely creeping rootstock. This produces runners and leafy shoots. 

 The runners are underground stems, carrying colourless scales instead 

 of green leaves. They creep under the surface of the ground, rooting 

 from the joints and finally producing upright, leafy stems from their 

 ends. The leafy shoots are upright from the beginning and arise 

 in bunches from the very base of the stems. They are round and 

 have at first only leaves but develop later into flower-bearing stems. 

 The stems are from one-half to three feet high, perfectly smooth. 

 The stem leaves are comparatively short, only one or two inches 

 long, and their apex is contracted somewhat after the fashion of the 

 end of a canoe. The leaves of the basal shoots are longer and 

 generally narrower than the stem leaves. Although showing con- 

 siderable variation in colour, shape and size, the leaves have always 

 this characteristic in common, that the ligule is very short and blunt. 

 The flowers are in a panicle, pyramidal in shape during blossoming 

 time and afterwards more or less contracted. Each branch of the 

 panicle carries several spikelets. These are generally bluish-green — 

 hence the name Blue Grass — but sometimes they have a purplish or 

 violet shade. A spikelet has as a rule four or five flowers, each of 

 which is enclosed within two glumes of equal size. Although the 

 arrangement of stamens and pistils indicates that cross-fertilization 

 would be easy, no doubt much self-fertilization takes place. 



Geographical distribution: Kentucky Blue Grass is a cos- 

 mopolitan plant, distributed all over the world outside of the tropics. 



