630 GRAMINE^. (grass FAMILY.) 



7. P. prat^nsis, L. (Green or Common Meadow- Grass. Kentucky 

 Blue-Grass.) Culms sending off copious running rootstocks from the base, and 

 the sheaths smooth ; ligule short and blunt ; panicle short-pyramidal ; spilcelets 3-5- 

 flowered, crowded, and most of them almost sessile on the branches, ovate-lanceo- 

 late or ovate ; lower palet 5-7ierved, hairy along the margins as well as the keel. — 

 Common in dry soil: imported for pastures and meadows. Indigenous in 

 mountain regions from N. Penn. northward. May -July. (Eu.) 



8. P, tkiviXlis, L. (Roughish Meadow-Grass.) Culms erect from a 

 somewhat decumbent base, but no distinct running rootstocks ; sheaths and leaves 

 more or less rough ; ligule oblong, acute ; panicle longer or with the branches more 

 distant ; spikelets mostly 3-flowered, broader upwards ; lower paid prominently 

 5-nerved, naked at the margins : otherwise nearly as in the preceding. — Moist 

 meadows, &c., July. (Nat. from Eu.) 



■I- •>- Spikelets fewer and more scattered, on slender pedicels: plants sojl and smooth, 



Jhwering early, {No running rootstocks, except in No. 13.) 

 -"■ Spikelets small (l"-2" long), pale green, rather loosely 2 - 4-Jlowered : Jlowers 



oblong, obtuse : lower palet scarcely scarious-tipped : culm-leaves lance-linear, acute, 



l'-3' long. 



9. P. sylv6stris. Gray. C«Zm_^a«!si, erect ; branches of the oblong-pyram- 

 idal panicle short, numerous, in fives or more ; lower palet villous on the keel for 

 its whole length, and on the margins below the middle, sparingly webbed at the base. 

 — Uocky woods and meadows, W. New York, Penn. and Virginia to Wisconsin, 

 Kentucky, and southward. June. 



10. P. d6bilis, Torr. Culms terete, weak ; branches of the small panicle 

 few and slender ( the lower 1 J' - 2' long to the few spikelets), in pairs and threes ; 

 Jlowers very obtuse, smooth and glabrous, except a sparing web at their base. — 

 Rocky woodlands, Rhode Island and N. New York to Wisconsin. May. 



*+ ♦* Spikelets 2" long, light green: oblong-lanceolate flowers and both glumes acute. 



11. P. als6des, Gray. Leaves rather narrowly linear, acute, the upper- 

 most ( 2^' - 4' long) often sheathing the base of the narrow and loose panicle, the 

 capillary branches of which are appressed when young, and mostly in threes or 

 fours ; lower palet very obscurely nerved, villous on the keel below, and with a 

 narrow cobwebby tuft at its base, otherwise glabrous. ( P. nemoralis, Torr. Sf 

 Ed. 1 : but wholly different from the European species of that name.) — Woods, 

 on hillsides. New England to Penn. and Wisconsin. May, June. 



++ .4-t. ++ Spikelets larger (3'' -4" long), pale green, rarely purple-tinged, feio and 

 scattered at the extremity of the long and capillary branches {mostly in pairs or 

 threes) of the very disuse panicle: Jlowers 3-6, loose, oblong and olttuse, as is 

 the larger glume : loioer palet conspicuously scarious at the apex, villous below the 

 middle on the keel and margins: culms flattish, smooth. 



12. P. flexubsa, Muhl. (not of Wahl.) Culms l°-3° high, tufted; its 

 leaves all linear {2' -5' long) and gradually taper-pointed; panicle very effuse (its 

 branches 2' - 4' long to the 4 - 6-flowered spikelets or first ramification ) ; lower 

 palet prominently nerved, no web at the base. (P. autumnalis, Muhl. in Ell. P. 

 cimpylc, S^hult.) — Dry woods, Virginia, Kentucky, and southward. Feb. - 

 May. — Wrongly confounded M'ith the last, but near it. P. autumnalis is an 



