104 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mostly tbree to five flowered, and about three lines long; the outer 

 glumes are acute and narrow. The flowering glumes are lanceolate, 

 tuo lines long, roughish, and with a short rough awn about half a line 

 long. 



This species has many varieties, both in this country and in Europe. 

 It is indigenous in the mountainous parts of New England, in the Eocky 

 Hountains, and in various Northern localities. 



As found in cultivation it has been derived from Europe. 



Hon. J. Gould, of New York, says : 



It forms the great bulk of llie slieep pastures of the highlauds of Scotland, where 

 it is the favorite food of the sheep, and where the shepherds believe it to be more 

 nutritious for their flocks than any other. Gmelin says that the Tartars choose to 

 encamp during the summer where this grass is most abundant, because they believe 

 that it affords the most wholesome food for all cattle, but especially for sheep. Nat- 

 ure distributes it among dry, sandy, and rocky soils, where scarcely any other species 

 would grow. It is without doubt the very best of the grasses growing on sandy soils. 

 It roots deeijly, and forms a dense, short turf, which adapts it admirably for lawns 

 aud pleasure-grounds where the soil is sandy. It is almost useless as a hay crop, as 

 its leaves and culms are too fine to give a remunerative amount of hay ; it is only as 

 a pasture grass on sandy soils that it is valuable, and in these, when highly manured, 

 it is driven out by the more succulent species. It is often found 4,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea. Its seeds weigh about 14 pounds to the bushel. 



(Plate 108.) 



Festuca microstachys. (Small Fescue grass, Western Fescue.) 



A slender annual grass, which is very common in California aud 

 Oregon, considerably like the small fescue [Festuca tenella). The culms 

 are slender, 6 to 18 inches high ; the leaves are short and narrow. The 

 panicle is from 2 to 5 inches long, with rather distant short branches, 

 which are mostly single at the joints, and apt to be one-sided, some- 

 times with the lower branches spreading or reflexed. The spikelets are 

 small, from two to five flowered, on short, thickened i)edicels, varying 

 from smooth to pubescent. The outer glumes are acute, about a line 

 long. The flowering glumes are two or three lines long, with an awn 

 nearly twice as long ; the palets have each two short, bristle-like teeth, 

 which often i^roject beyond the flowering glume. The grass is of little 

 value, except as it helps to extend the pasturage of uncultivated ground. 

 (Plate 109.) 



Festuca scabrella. (Bunch grass.) 



A perennial grass, growing in strong clumps or bunches, and hence 

 called ''bunch grass." It is a native of the Eocky Mountain region, 

 from Colorado westward to California and Oregon. The culms are usu- 

 ally 2 to 3 feet high, erect, and smooth 5 the radical leaves are numerous, 

 about half as long as the culm, generally rigid, involute, and scabrous 

 on the margins 5 the blade is prone to separate when old, leaving an 

 abundance of leafless sheaths at the base ; the cauline leaves are about 

 two, short and pointed, 2 to 4 inches long; the sheath scabrous, the lig- 

 ule short or wanting; the panicle is usually 3 to 5 inches long; the 



