60 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Milium effusum. (Wild millet.) 



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

 woods in the northern portions of the United States and in Canada. It 

 is also found in ^^^orthern Europe and in Russian Asia. There are four to 

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

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

 below. The sheaths are long and smooth. The pauic|e is loose and 

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

 unequal length, the longer ones 2 to 3 inches, and tioweriug near the 

 extremities. The whorls are from 1 to 2 inches apart. Tlie 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 Panicum^ to which this grass is closely re- 

 lated. 



Hon. J. S. Gould, in the Report of the i^ew York State Agricultural 

 Society, says respecting this grass : 



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

 planted to open aud 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. (Drop-seed 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 flowering glume, some- 

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

 the apex. The flowering glume is longer than the outer glumes, 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. (Nimble 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. 



