42 THE GRASSES OF MAINE. 



Common in fields everywhere. Flowers in July. 



This grass has gained an almost unparalleled reputation in the 

 West, especially in Kentucky, where it has given name to a whole 

 section of the State — the blue-grass region — and has taken one of 

 its common names from that State. Whatever ma}' be its value 

 and importance there, it surely has no such reputation in New Eng- 

 land, and especially in Maine. For field culture, the yield per acre 

 is much less than many other species, and further, it is attacked early 

 in the season by a species of thrips (Limothrips poaphagus, Com.), 

 a minute, orange-colored insect which conceals itself beneath the 

 sheath of the upper leaf where it feeds on the stem just above the 

 upper joint, completely killing the stem above, so that by haying 

 time at least one-fourth of the grass is dead and worthless. It can- 

 not, therefore, be advisable to cultivate this grass in Maine. It 

 is doubtless a good grass to mix with others for lawns. 



Genus Festuca, Linneus. 



Fes-tu-ca. 



Latin, Festuca, a straw. 



Spikelets from three to many-flowered ; flowers not webby at the 

 base ; glumes unequal, shorter than the flowers, the lower with one 

 nerve, the upper three-nerved, narrow, keeled acute ; flowering 

 glume membranaceous or coriaceous, narrow, rounded on the back 

 but not keeled, more or less distinctly three to five-nerved, acute or 

 tapering into a straight awn, rarely obtuse ; palea narrow, flat, 

 prominently two- nerved or two-keeled. 



The three species now known to occur in Maine may be separated 

 bv the following table : 



Leaves broad and flat; flowers without awns. . . F. elatior. 

 ■I Leaves with their edges more or less rolled in ; flowers with 



awns 



■> 



*{; 



Stems growing from a dense tuft of leaves F. ovina. 



Stems not growing from a dense tuft of leaves F. tenella. 



42. Festuca tenella, Willdenow. 



Fes-tu'-ca le-nel'-la. 



Common Name. Slender Fescue-Grass. 



Annual ; stems slender, from five to eighteen inches high ; leaves 

 convolute bristle-form. Panicle spike-like, one-sided or more com- 



