12 BULLETIN 692, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
mats 5 to 7 feet in diameter, and with relatively few flowering culms. 
It is by this stoloniferous character that carpet bent is most strikingly — 
distinguished from Rhode Island bent, but the ligules are long and 
the flowering panicles rather dense. | 
Experiments are now under way to test turf grown from different 
forms of carpet bent by vegetative multiplication. It is found very ¢. 
easy to plant by cutting the long runners into pieces 2 to 3 inches 
long. This method is entirely practicable where a uniform fine 
quality of turf is desired. One plant 6 feet in diameter will give 
enough cuttings to sow an area 30 feet square. Such pure strains 
avoid the particolor effect so onneleneie of greens seeded to 
South German mixed bent. 
The botanical name to be applied to carpet bent is not yet certain. 
SUMMARY. 
(1) Rhode Island bent is a very common grass in New England 
and New York and less common west to Michigan and south to 
Virginia. The evidence points clearly to its being an introduction 
from Europe. 
(2) Rhede Island bent seed was formerly gathered in considerable 
quantities, mainly in Rhode Island, but in recent years very little 
of the genuine seed has reached the market. 
(3) The commercial decline of Rhode Island bent seed seems to 
be correlated with the development of the redtop-seed industry in 
Illinois. Redtop seed is cheaper and therefore was substituted for 
Rhode Island bent by dealers. 
(4) Rhode Island bent is an excellent grass for fine turf, and for 
this purpose is excelled only by velvet bent and carpet bent. 
(5) Rhode Island bent seed could be gathered nearly pure in 
almost unlimited quantities from old pastures in New England and 
New York. By the use of labor-saving machinery the seed should 
be harvested cheaply enough to command a large market. 
(6) Colonial bent, or browntop, the seed of which is gathered in 
New Zealand in small quantities, is the same as Rhode Island bent. 
(7) The botanical names of Rhode Island bent and the related 
_ grasses, redtop, fiorin, creeping bent, and velvet bent, have been much 
confused. Some of the common names also have been erroneously 
interchanged. The name fiorin really belongs to a grass formerly 
cultivated that possesses long, creeping, leafy runners and was 
propagated solely by these runners, the seed never having been 
handled commercially. This name therefore should not be used 
either for redtop or for Rhode Island bent. The name Agrostis canina 
belongs to velvet bent and should not be applied to Rhode Island 
bent, which botanically is Agrostis tenuis. 
