Ill 



laid down with one bushel of Festuca pratensis, one of Alopecurus pra- 

 tensis, three pounds of Anihoxanihwrn, a little Bromus mollis, with 

 "White Clover, the farmer will seek no further." No species among our 

 native grasses, Alopecwrus pratensis excepted, produces so great a 

 quantity of early food as the Meadow Fescue Grass, and it appears to 

 be far superior to the latter in nutritive qualities. 



Festuca blatior. Tail Fescue Grass. Plate XCIII. 



Panicle much branched, spreading, inclining to one side ; branches 

 mostly in pairs, divaricated after flowering. Spikelets many-flowered, 

 ovate-lanceolate. Lower palea five- veined ; the middle vein termi- 

 nating below the apex in a short awn. Leaves linear-lanceolate. 



Festuca elatior, Lmnceus. E. B. 1593 ; ed. 2. 149. Hooker and 

 Arnott. Bentham. Festuca arundinacea, Schreber. Babington. 

 Schedonorus elatior, Beauvois. Lindley. Bucetum elatior, 

 Parnell. 



Not unfrequent in wet meadows, especially in a stiff clayey soil 

 liable to occasional overflowings, likewise in osier-grounds, sea-marshes, 

 and moist woods. It has often a reed-like aspect, growing in large 

 tufts, the round, erect, striated stems varying in height from three to 

 five feet. Leaves linear, acute, or almost linear-lanceolate, scabrous 

 above, especially towards the extremity. Panicle large, sometimes a 

 foot or more in length, spreading widely, and somewhat inclining to 

 one side ; the principal branches much divaricated, and even bending 

 downwards after flowering. Spikelets ovate-lanceolate, varying in the 

 number of flowers from five or six upwards. Outer palea five-veined, 

 the middle or dorsal vein terminating in a short rough awn below the 

 membranaceous and frequently bifid apex. 

 Perennial. Flowers in June and July. 



The habit of this grass is not at all prepossessing to the eye of the 

 farmer, being coarse and rank, but cattle are fond of it, cows especially; 

 while, almost equally productive with Festuca pratensis, it is said to 

 surpass it in nutritive quality. Hence it might prove a useful grass in 

 situations not adapted to the growth of the more manageable species. _ 

 The Tall Fescue Grass is liable to variation in the form and divari- 

 cation of the panicle, a circumstance that seems to have led some of our 

 most intelligent practical botanists to suspect there may be two species 

 confounded under this name, viz. F. arundinacea of Schreber, and 

 F. elatior of Linnaeus. I have had no opportunity of ascertaining to 

 what extent this view may be supported by facts, but, unless such 

 specific difference is marked by features of greater constancy than 

 those above mentioned, must demur even to the highest _ authority in 

 such matters ; having seen both the. sea-side and the inland plant 

 assuming in alternate seasons, wetter or drier, an arrangement of the 

 branches of the inflorescence, so dissimilar, that, in herbarium speci- 



