98 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mr. S. 0. Tally, of Ellis County, Texas, has sent specimens of this 

 l>Tass ; he says it is abundant there, bears heavy pasturing, and makes 

 a beautiful yard or lawn grass. 



Similar favorable accounts have been received from others. It is 

 likely to prove one of the most valuable grasses for the South and South- 

 west. By means of its strong stolons or offshoots it multiplies rapidly 

 and makes a dense permanent sod. It produces an abundance of radi- 

 cal leaves, and those of the culm are long, smooth, and of good width, 

 abovit 4 to 8 inches long and two lines wide. The culms are 2 to 3 feet 

 high, each with two or three leaves, with long sheaths and blade, the 

 upper leaf sometimes reaching nearly to the top of the iianicle. The 

 ligule is short and rounded, or lacerated when old. The panicle is from 

 3 to 8 inches in length, rather narrow, and with short, erect branches 

 of unequal length, in clusters of from three to five, the longest seldom 

 2 inches, most of them short, some nearly sessile, and profusely flower- 

 ing to the base. The spikelets usually contain about five flowers. The 

 outer glumes are ovate-lanceolate, acute, with whitish scarious margins, 

 and scabrous on the keel. Tlie flowering glumes are longer, gradually 

 sharp i)ointed, and smooth excei)t on the margins and miduerve, which 

 are usually pubescent, sometimes densely so. In many cases there is a 

 remarkable development of long, silky hairs at the base of each flower, 

 but sometimes these are quite absent. (Plate 100.) 



PoA TENUIFOLIA. (Oregon Blue grass.) 



There is some uncertainty about the proper specific name of this 

 grass. In the report for 1881-82 it was published as Poa Californicaj 

 but it seems probable that that name belongs to a different species. It 

 is common in California, Oregon, and Washington Territory, and is one 

 of the numerous bunch grasses referred to in accounts of the wild pas- 

 turage of that country. The foliage of some forms of the grass seems 

 to be too scanty, but of others the radical leaves are long and abun- 

 dant. It furnishes an abundance of nutritious seeds, which are said to 

 be gathered for food by Indians. 



The culms are from IJ to 3 feet high, erect, and scantily clothed 

 with a few short, narrow leaves. The i^anicle is erect, 3 to 5 inches 

 long, rather narrow and loose, the branches mostly in fives, unequal, 

 from 4 to IJ inches long, flowering above the middle. The spikelets 

 are three to five flowered ; the outer glumes are oblong-lanceolate, about 

 two lines long, nearly as long as the flowers, three-nerved, rough on the 

 keel, somewhat scabrous, and acutish. The flowering glumes are lance- 

 olate, convex, or slightly compressed toward the apex, indistinctly five, 

 nerved, two to three lines long, acutish, minutely scabrous, the apex and 

 margins scarious and of a bronze or purplish color, sometimes slightly 

 pubescent near the base. The palet is almost as long as its glume, nar- 

 , rower and bidentate at the apex. 



