GENERA OF GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
137 
Eurasia. Some of the European species with a distinct palea have 
been segregated as the genus Colobachne. 
Type species : Alopecurus pratensis L. 
Alopecurus L., Sp. PI. 60, 1753; Gen. PI., ed. 5, 30. 1754. Four species are 
described, A. pratensis, A. geniculatus, A. hordeiformis, and A. monspeliensis. 
The third and fourth species do not agree with Linnaeus's generic description 
and are now referred, the third to Pennisetum and the fourth to Polypogon. 
The other two were well known to Linnaeus and were described in his flora of 
Sweden. The first, being an economic, species, is chosen as the type species of 
the genus. 
Alopecurus pratensis L. (fig. 74), meadow foxtail, is sometimes 
used as a meadow grass in the eastern United States. It is recom- 
mended for mixtures on moist soil, being nutritious and producing 
early forage. Meadow foxtail is an erect grass, 2 to 3 feet tall, with 
short rhizomes, loose, often inflated, sheaths, and spikes or heads 2 
to 4 inches long and about one- fourth of an inch thick. Introduced 
from Europe, where it is favorably known as a meadow grass. 
Alopecurus geniculatus L. is a low, pale, soft grass, usually 6 to 18 
inches high, with decumbent rooting bases and slender panicles 1 to 
3 inches long and about one-eighth of an inch thick, the delicate awn 
bent and protruding about twice the length of the spikelet. Found 
in moist places across the continent. An allied and more common 
species, A. aristulatus Michx. (A. geniculatus aristulatus (Michx.) 
Torr.), is distinguished by the scarcely exserted awns. Alopecums 
alpinus J. E. Smith (A. occidentalis Scribn.), a northern species 
extending into the Rocky Mountains of the United States, has a 
short, thick spike with spikelets woolly all over. Alopecurus cali- 
fornicus Vasey, of the northwestern Pacific coast region, has slender 
spikes, 1 to 3 inches long and one-fourth of an inch thick, the spike- 
lets 3 mm. long. The species of Alopecurus are all palatable and 
nutritious, but usually are not found in sufficient abundance to be of 
great importance. 
62. Polypogon Desf. 
Spikelets 1 -flowered, the pedicel disarticulating a short distance 
below the glumes, leaving a short-pointed callus attached; glumes 
equal, entire or 2-lobed, awned from the tip or from between the 
lobes, the awn slender, straight ; lemma much shorter than the glumes, 
hyaline, usually bearing a slender straight awn shorter than the 
awns of the glumes. 
Annual or perennial usually decumbent grasses, with flat blades 
and dense, bristly, spikelike panicles. Species about 10, in the tem- 
perate regions of the world, chiefly in the Eastern Hemisphere, three 
species being introductions into the United States. 
Type species : Alopecurus monspeliensis L. 
Polypogon Desf., Fl. Atlant. 1: 66. 1798. Only one species described, this 
based on Alopecurus monspeliensis L. 
