Illustrated Descriptions of the Grasses 



usually smooth, hairy at throat. Ligule a ring of short hairs. 

 Leaves 2'-8' long, i"-3" wide, flat, rough on margins 



Panicle 2'-8' long, densely flowered with large spikelets. Spikelets 8- 

 40-flowered, 2|"-8" long, flat. Outer scales nearly equal, acute; 

 flowering scales obtuse, 3-nerved. Stamens 2 or 3. Grass Unpleas- 

 antly scented. 



Cultivated lands and waste places. July to September. 



Throughout nearly the entire United States, and in Ontario. 



Purple Eragrostis. Eragrdsiis pectindcea (Michx.) Steud. 



Perennial, tufted. 

 Stem 1-3 ft. tall, erect or spreading. Sheaths smooth or hairy. Ligule 



a ring of hairs. Leaves 4'-i2' long, i"-4" wide, smooth on lower 



surface, rough above, hairy near base. 

 Panicle 6'-2o' long, pyramidal, reddish purple, the branches 2'-8' long, 



widely spreading, bearded with white hairs in the axils. Spikelets 



4-12-flowered, flat, ij"-4" long, on pedicels as long or longer. Outer 



scales acute, about equal; flowering scales acute, 3-nerved, small. 



Stamens 2 or 3, anthers purple. 

 Dry soil. July to September. 

 Massachusetts to South Dakota and Colorado, south to Florida and 



Texas. 



NARROW MELIC-GRASS AND PURPLE OAT 



"Farre away I heard her song, 

 'Cusha! Cusha!' all along; 



Where the reedy Lindis floweth, 

 Floweth, floweth. 



From the meads where melick groweth 



Faintly came her milking song." 



This beautiful grass of spring and early summer, the Narrow 

 Melic-grass, is found by the borders of thickets and open woods 

 from Pennsylvania southward, where its pale green flowers often 

 nod to the breeze above purplish blue banks of dwarf^iris and the 

 more fragrant, but somewhat less common, crested iris. So widely 

 open are the dropping spikelets that the panicles seem fringed 

 with pendent green bells, for the papery outer scales of each 

 spikelet are large and broad, like flower petals. 



A more northern species belonging to this genus is so like the 

 Oat-grasses in appearance that it is commonly called Purple 

 Oat, and in older botanies is given as Avhta striata. The scales 

 are narrow, instead of broad as in the preceding species, and the 



181 



