[ 



70 Bulletin VII. 1. 



carinate, equal, usually ciliate along the keels and abruptly mucro- 

 nate or short awn-pointed. Flowering glume shorter than the 

 empty ones, thin, truncate, awnless, rather loosely enclosing the 

 grain. Stamens three. Styles distinct. 



Annuals or perennials with simple culms, from a few inches to 

 three feet high. 



Species ten, in the temperate and cooler regions of both hemi- 

 spheres. North American species two, one of which {P. pratense) 

 is claimed to have been originally introduced here from Europe. 



I. Phleum pratenS3. Linn. Timothy, Herd's-grass in New England. 

 Plate XXII. Figure 87. 



Culms simple, one to three feet high, panicle one to four inches 

 long, very densely many-flowered. Empty glumes about one line 

 long, the strong ciliate keels projecting into sharp, mncronate 

 points, which are shorter than the glume in length. Floret en- 

 tirely concealed within the outer glumes, the stamens and feath- 

 ery stigmas protruding from the apex. June. 



Oae of the best known and most extensively cultivated grasses 

 for hay, sown either alone or mixed with red-top. It succeeds 

 best on moist loams, or clays. On very dry ground the yield is 

 apt to be light; on such soils the base of the stem is often thick- 

 ened and bulb-like. This grass is a native of Europe, and possi- 

 bly also of this country, but it is generally supposed to have been 

 introduced here. It is recorded as having been first cultivated in 

 the Carolinas by Timothy Hanson about the middle of the last 

 century. 



23. ALOPECURUS Linn. Sp. PI. 6o (1753). 



Spikelets one-flowered, crowded in a cylindrical spike-like pani- 

 cle, rachilla articulated below the two equal and laterally much 

 compressed empty glumes. Flowering glume awned on the back. 

 Palea none. The articulation of the rachilla below^ the empty 

 glumes forms an exception in the Series Poacece. 



Species about twenty. Tennessee species two, one of which has 

 been introduced. 



I. Empty glumes acute, 2\ to 3 lines long . . i. A. pratensis. 

 I. Empty glumes obtuse, i to \\ lines long 2. A. geniculatus. 



I. Alopecurus pratensis Linn. Meadow Foxtail. 



Plate XXII. Figure 88. 



An erect perennial one to three feet high, from a short creeping 

 root-stock. Sheaths smooth, the uppermost usually somewhat in- 

 flated and longer than the leaf-blade; ligule hyaline, obtuse, about 

 aline long; leaf-blade linear or narrow-lanceolate, acute, the lower 

 four to ten inches long, two to three lines wide. Panicle rather 

 stout, obtuse, two to four inches long. Spikelets flat, two to three 

 lines long; empty glumes distinct or slightly grown together near 



