44 . THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



This millet has been more or less cultivated, especially in the Southern 

 States, for many years. Jn rich ground it is said to yield an immense 

 amount of forage, for which purpose it should be cut before it has ma- 

 tured, and may be cut many times during the season. It is extensively 

 cultivated in India and there forms an important article of food for the 

 natives. 



Spartina. 



A genus of coarse, perennial grasses, growing mainly in marshy 

 ground, from extensively-creeping, scaly root stocks. The leaves are 

 long and tough and the sheaths smooth. The flowers are produced in 

 racemed spikes, the spikes varying in size and arrangement in different 

 species. The flowers are arranged in two ranks on one side of a trian- 

 gular axis, being closely sessile and more or less imbricated. The spike- 

 lets are one-flowered, much flattened laterally. The outer glumes are 

 strongly compressed and keeled, acute or bristle-pointed, the keel mostly 

 rough-hispid, the upper one longer and larger than the obtusish flower. 

 The flowering glume is strongly compressed and is shorter than the 

 thin membranaceous palet. There are about five species in the United 

 States. 



SpArtina oynosuroides. (Fresh- water Cord grass, Fall Marsh grass.) 



This species has a wide range, from near the coast to the Missouri 

 Eiver. In the Western States it is very plentiful, often forming a large 

 part of the grass of the sloughs and wet marshes of that region. It is 

 coarse and stout, growing from 3 to 5 feet high, with leaves 2 to 3 

 feet long. The top of the culm for about 1 foot is occupied by from five 

 to ten flower spikes, which are from to 3 inches long, and the spike- 

 lets are very closely imbricated. The outer glumes are unequal, the 

 lower one linear-lanceolate, the upper one lanceolate, with a long, stiff 

 point. The flowering glume is about as long as the lower glume, the 

 upper half of the stout keel strongly hispid. The palet is thin mem- 

 branaceous, two-nerved, and longer than its glume. 



This grass is frequently cut for hay, but it is a very coarse, inferior 

 article, unless cut when very young. It gives good feed very early in 

 the spring, but becomes so coarse as soon to be rejected by the cattle 

 when anything better is procurable. In the bottom lands of the Mis- 

 sissippi it is abundant, and has to some extent been manufactured into 

 paper. (Plate 19.) 



Spartina juncea. (Marsh grass. Salt grass, Eush salt grass.) 



A slender, rigid grass, usually 1 to 2 feet high, from a creeping, scaly 

 rhizoma 5 leaves involute, rush-like, and rigid ; panicle composed of three 

 to five linear, alternate, shortly-peduncled, spreading spikes 1 to 2 inches 

 long and an inch or more distant on the culm. The spikelets are 

 crowded. The outer glumes are very unequal, acute, the upper one 



