26 THE GRASSES OF MAINE. 



Genus Deyeuxia, Clarion. 



Dey-eux'-i-a. 



Spikelets one-flowered, in a contracted or open panicle. Glumes 

 nearly equal in length, keeled, but without an awn ; flowering glume 

 hairy at the base, nearly as long as the lower glume and usually 

 with a short, fine awn from the back, which is scarcely distinguish- 

 able from the hairs. Stamens three. There is also a small, hairy 

 appendage at the base of the flowering glume, which is considered 

 to be the rudiment of. a second flower. Calamagrostis of the older 

 books. 



16. Deyeuxia Canadensis, Beauvois. 

 Dey-eux'-i-a Can-a-den'-sis. 



PLATE IX. 



Common Names. Blue Joint-Grass, Small Reed-Grass, Can- 

 adian Small-Reed. 



Stem erect, from three to five feet high ; leaves a foot or more 

 long and from a quarter to nearly half an inch wide. Panicle open 

 and somewhat spreading, from four to six inches or more long and 

 from two to three inches in diameter, generally of a purplish color. 

 The spikelets are on short stalks ; glumes nearly equal in length, 

 acute and awnless ; flowering glume with long white hairs from the 

 base and also from the appendage, which reach nearly to the end, 

 and there is a fine, inconspicuous awn arising from the back which 

 only reaches as far as the apex. The palea is about two-thirds as 

 long as the flowering glumes. Very common in wet places, and 

 flowers in August. 



This grass is deserving of more attention than it has generally 

 received from the farmers in Maine. It is greedily eaten by stock 

 in the winter, and is thought, by those who have used it most, to be 

 as nutritious as Timothy. A chemical analysis of this species cut 

 in Massachusetts, when in blossom, by Prof. Storer of the Bussey 

 Institution, gave ash 4.65, fat 2.33, nitrogen-free extract, 41.23, 

 crude fiber 44.34, albuminoids 7.45. This analysis certainly prom- 

 ises quite as much for this grass as has been claimed for it by those 

 who have cut it for hay and fed it to their stock. 



It seems to be a very desirable grass to grow on wet, boggy lands 

 which are not drained. 



