38 
GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 
The name of “Quack” or “Sweet Quack,” which western 
farmers have given this grass is confusing, for the true Quack- 
Fic. 14.— Va- 
nilla-grass (Hiero- 
chloe odorata). X + 
Means of control 
grass flowers in June and its matted “couch”’ of 
rootstocks is near the surface, while Vanilla-grass 
flowers in early spring and its rootstocks are 
deep in the soil. The whole plant has an odor 
much resembling the Vanilla bean, most lasting 
if plucked while the plant is in flower. In north- 
ern Europe it is strewn before churches, the 
trampling feet of the congregation causing it to 
yield its fragrance, and this custom has given it 
the name of Holy-grass. The Indians of the 
Northwest make baskets and mats of it; the 
perfume has a tendency to produce sleep, and 
pillows are stuffed with it; but as hay or forage 
it has no value. 
Culms one to two feet in height, very slen- 
der, erect, simple, smooth. Leaves of the flower- 
ing stalks very short, lance-shaped, smooth or 
only slightly roughened; but after seeding the 
rootstocks send up many barren stalks with long, 
flat, rough, and deep green leaves whose task is 
to assimilate and store food for next season’s 
early bloom. The panicles show when the stalks 
are but a few inches above the ground and grow 
with them, unfolding very suddenly; they are 
pyramidal, two to four inches long, the branchlets 
spreading and drooping when green but stiffening 
and becoming erect and wiry as the seeds ripen, 
the glumes turning golden brown tinged with 
purple. Spikelets one-seeded. (Fig. 14.) 
Summer fallowing, with very deep plowing, which will expose 
and wither the rootstocks. The ripened grass should first be mowed 
and burned so as to avoid plowing under the long-lived seeds. 
Or deep plowing in spring when the grass is in flower, and immedi- 
ately seeding the ground heavily with some grass of quick growth. 
