74 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



than the outer glumes, the lower flower awnless, the upper one with a 

 short, stout, bent, or hooked awn at the apex. 



This grass is not held in good repute as an agricultural grass in 

 Europe. In this country, especially at the South, it has frequently 

 been favorably spoken of. Professor Phares says : 



It luxuriates in moist, peaty lauds, but will grow on poor, sandy, or clay hill lands, 

 and produce remunerative crops where few other plants will make anything. It has 

 been cultivated in North Carolina on such laud, and after cutting and allowed to srow 

 again, plowed under with so much advantage that other crops were subsequently 

 produced. Hon. H. W. L. Lewis, of Louisiana, has cultivated this grass many years 

 with great satisfaction. It is by no means the best of our grasses, but best for some 

 lands, and on such lands more protitable than other grasses. It seems to have been 

 greatly improved by acclimating in Texas and other Southern States, and this is 

 true of some of the other grasses and forage plants. 



(Plate 64.) 



Trisetum. 



This genus is characterized as having the spikelets two to three and, 

 rarely, five flowered, the axis usually hairy, and at the base of the upper 

 flower extended into a bristle; the outer glumes unequal, acute, keeled, 

 membranaceous, with scarious margins; the flowering glumes of similar 

 texture keeled, acute, the apex two-toothed, the teeth sometimes pro- 

 longed into bristle-like points, the central nerve furnished with an awn 

 above the middle, which is usually twisted and bent in the middle; the 

 palet hyaline, iiarrow, two-nerved, two-toothed. 



Trisetum palustre. 



A slender grass, usually about 2 feet high, growing in low meadows or 

 moist ground throughout the Eastern part of the United States. The 

 culms are smooth, with long internodes and few linear leaves, 2 to 4 inches 

 long; the panicle is oblong, 3 to 4 inches long, loose and gracefully 

 drooping, the branches two to five together, rather capillary, 1 to 1^ 

 Inches long, and loosely flowered; the spikelets are two-flowered; the 

 outer glumes are about two lines long, the lower one one-nerved, the 

 upper rather obovate and three-nerved; the lower flower is commonly 

 awnless or only tipped with a short awn ; the second flower is rather 

 shorter and with a slender, spreading awn longer than the flower. 



This is a nutritious grass, but is seldom found in sufficient quantity 

 to be of much value. (Plate 65.) 



Trisetum cernuum. 



This grass grows to the height of 2 or 3 feet, with flat wide leaves, 

 which are about 6 inches long, and with an open, spreading, and droop- 

 ing panicle, 6 to 9 inches long; the branches are slender, solitary, or 

 sometimes clustered below, and much subdivided above the middle. 

 The spikelets vary from three to six lines in length and have two to three 

 or, rarely, four flowers in each. The outer glumes are very unequal, the 



