MICHIGAN WEEDS. 



289 



GRASS FAMILY. GRAMINEAE. 



There are many widely different plants which in popular language have the name "grass" attached 

 to them, such as knot-grass, rib-grass, cotton-grass, sea-grass, eel-grass, sedge-grass, the clover and 

 others, but these do not belong to the family here under consideration. 



Grasses which are grown chiefly for the use of their grain, such as Indian corn, wheat, oats, bar- 

 ley, rye, rice, doura are called cereals. 



Besides the cereals the family includes sugar cane, millet, bamboo, timothy, red-top, June grass, 

 fowl meadow grass, blue joint, buffalo grass, orchard grass, meadow foxtail, the fescues, rye-grass, 

 oat-grass, Bermuda grass, and other pasture grasses, and, as will here be seen, the family is conspic- 

 uous for a considerable number of weeds. 



The grass family heads the list of food producing plants, which are the foundation of all agri- 

 culture. Of the staple crops ef the United States, the grass family contributes about five-sixths of 

 the total value. There are about 3,500 species of grasses. 



Fig. 2 (2). 



Quack Grass. Couch Grass. Agropyron repens (L.) Beauv. A mooths pale green perennial, 

 very variable, 30-120 cm. high, with long creeping, jointed'rootstocks; spikes 6-20 cm. long, erect or 

 bent; spikelets 10-20 mm. long, 2-8-flowered, florets overlapping for three-fourths of their length or 

 more; empty glumes each unsymmetrical, 7-11 mm^long, first ■ strongly 5-6-nerved, second 7-8-nerved, 

 acute or notched, margins scarious, floral glume about 1 cm. long, those above shorter, 5-nerved near 

 the short awned apex. 



Found in Europe, North Africa, Asia and extensively naturalized in cultivated grounds in North 

 America. The rootstocks fill the soil, much resembling those of June grass, except they are larger; 

 the flat, twisted leaf-blades near the ground are not easily distinguished from those of timothy 

 It seldom produces seeds till the plants becomes dwarfed by crowding. 



I have long considered quack grass the worst weed in Michigan because it holds its own well and 

 spreads whenever there is a chance and chiefly because the farmer does not recognize it until it 

 is scattered far and wide. 



