104 



Festuca ovina. Sheep's Fescue Grass. Plate LXXXV. 



Panicle erect, one-sided. Spiielets ovate, spreading in two rows, 

 four- to six-flowered. Awn less than half the length of the palea. 

 Culm square. Leaves bristle-shaped. 



Festuca ovina, LinwBus. E. B. 585 ; ed. 2. 141. Generally adopted. 



Very common throughout the kingdom in dry soils, especially on 

 elevated natirral pasture land and mountain slopes, on which latter it 

 often constitutes the principal vegetation. It varies considerably in 

 aspect according to situation and exposure, being sometimes not more 

 than two or three inches high, while in other places the flowering stems 

 attain nearly a foot. The slender foliage forms dense tufts of a dark 

 green, but more or less glaucous hue ; the radical leaves being indi- 

 vidually almost hair-like ; those of the stem, usually not more than two 

 or three, very short and more expanded. Ligule bilobate, one lobe 

 longer than the other. Panicle loose and spreading when in flower, 

 afterwards compact, one or two inches or more in length. Outer palea 

 extending into a short awn rarely equalling half its own length. 



Perennial. Flowers in June. 



The square stem, considered as a marked feature of distinction 

 between this species and F. duriuscula, is not to be depended upon, 

 the angles being frequently obsolete, or only traceable immediately 

 below the inflorescence. 



Either Festuca ovina, or some species so nearly allied as to be gene- 

 rally regarded as the same, is distributed over the whole of the north 

 temperate and Arctic regions, and is said to be likewise indigenous to 

 New Zealand. The normal form, here figured, is so different in appear- 

 ance from certain others Tvhich follow it in the present work, that the 

 rank of distinct species formerly, and, indeed, in some instances stUl, 

 assigned to the latter, is not altogether unfounded. 



As the name bestowed upon it indicates, the Sheep's Fescue is a 

 favourite food of sheep, and cattle generally seem fond of its wiry- 

 looking, but still succulent and nourishing herbage, which in some 

 places, as among the Highlands of Scotland, constitutes almost the 

 entire pasture. In the practice of agriculture it is next to useless, on 

 account of the shortness and thinness of the foliage rendering it entirely 

 unproductive as hay ; while for grazing purposes, on temporary pasture, 

 grasses of larger growth are proportionately far more profitable ; yield- 

 ing, as they do, a greater quantity of food upon the same extent of 

 surface. Nature, in her distribution of it on poor sandy and rocky 

 soils, where other species would dwindle and die, points out the only 

 situations to which it is properly adapted. The superiority of the 

 flesh and the fineness of the wool of sheep fed on the upland pastures 

 where it grows have been long known, and are stiU subjects of com- 

 ment in this country. Chemical analysis does not assign F. ovina a very 

 high position on the list of nutritive indigenous grasses, but it should 

 be remembered, that the most wholesome and health-inspiring food is 



