60 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



MitiUM EFFUSUM. (Wild millet.) 



A perennial, rather slender, grass. 4 or 5 feet liigli, growing in damp 

 woods in the northern i)ortions of the United States and in Canada. It 

 is also fonnd in ]N"ortherD Europe and in Russian Asia. There are four to 

 five joints to the culm, each provided with a leaf which is broad and flat, 

 6 to 12 inches long, and half an inch wide, smooth above and roughish 

 below. The sheaths are long and smooth. The panicle is loose and 

 spreading, 6 to 10 inches long, the slender branches mostly in fives, of 

 uneqnal length, the longer ones 2 to 3 inches, and flowering near the 

 extremities. The whorls are from 1 to 2 inches apart. The spikelets 

 are single-flowered, consisting of a pair of thin, concave, smoothish, 

 empty glumes, one to one and one-half lines long, rather exceeding the 

 flowering glume, which is thick and hard, very smooth and shining, and 

 inclosing the palet which is of similar texture. The flowers are in 

 structure similar to those of Paniciim, to which this grass is closelj', re- 

 lated. 



Hon. J. S. Gould, in the Report of the IS'ew York State Agricultural 

 Society, says respecting this grass : 



Monntaiu meadows and borders of streams and cold woods. It thrives when trans- 

 planted to open and exposed situations. It is one of the most beautiful of the grasses ; 

 the panicle is often a foot long, and the branches are so exceedingly delicate that the 

 small glossy spikelets seem to be suspended in the air. Birds are very fond of the 

 seed. Mr. Colman says that he has raised 3 tons to the acre of as good nutritious 

 hay as could be grown from it, when sown in May. The plants multiply by the roots 

 as well as by the seed, sending out horizontal shoots of considerable length, which 

 root at the joint as they extend. 



(Plate 42.) 



MuHLENBERGiA. (Dropsced grass.) 



There are many species of this genus, mostly perennials. It is char- 

 acterized as having small, one-flowered spikelets, generally in open pan- 

 icles. The outer glumes are variable in size in different species, in 

 some minute, in others nearly as large as the floweriug glume, some- 

 times bristle-pointed, sometimes very blunt, and sometimes toothed at 

 the apex. ,The flowering glume is longer than the outer giuines, with 

 a short more or less hairy callus at the base, three to five nerved, thin- 

 nish or rigid mucronate pointed, or commonly with a long capillary awn 

 from the apex; the palet as long as the flowering awn and of sim- 

 ilar texture. 



MuHLENBERGiA DIFFUSA. (Kimble will, Drop seed. Wire grass.) 



This species is perennial, low with much-branched, decumbent stems 

 and slender panicles of flowers. The outer glumes are very minute, so 

 small as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, transparent and obtuse ; 

 the flowering glume little more than a line long, tipped with a fine awn 

 or beard once or twice its own length. 



