352 



5. rOA TllIVlALIS. 



[CL. III. 



this grass. But towards the south it does not appear to 

 grow beyond the 36° N. Lat. It is wanting entirely in Afri- 

 ca, and every where between the tropics. In hke manner it 

 is not found in New Holland, nor in the islands of the South 

 Sea. 



Synonymes and Figures. 



Gramen pratense. Lob. ic. 1. (Gramen minus D^. est P. se- 

 rotina, and Gramen miliaceum 3. Poa pratensis), Gra- 

 men pratense, 1. Dodon. 560. Gerard Emac, 3. Par- 

 Idns. Theatr., 1156. Gramen pratense paniculatum me- 

 dium, C. Bauh. Pin. % Scheuchz. Agrost. 180. Gra^ 

 men pratense vulgatius, minus, Moris, sect. 8. t. 5. 



Poa scabra, Ehrli. 



p. dubia, Leer'^s Herhorn. t. 6. f. 5. 



P. trivialis. Linn. Engl. Bof., 1072. Host, Gram. Austr.^ 

 % t. 62. Fl Dan., 1444. 



Uses, 



It is one of the most productive of the meadow and feed- 

 ing grasses. In England, a great deal has been said, since 

 the time of Ray, respecting what has been called the Orches- 

 ton Grass. Ray cites it under the name of Gramen ca^iinum 

 supinum longissimum in the Indiculiis plant, duhiarum of 

 his Synopsis : he mentions, as its habitat, a meadow near Had- 

 dington, two miles from Salisbury, and says, that the plant 

 is twenty-four feet long. Maddington and Orcheston St 

 Mary, from which latter place the grass has its name, lie 

 close by one another. It has lately been established by 

 Swayne and Maton, that this remarkable grass is nothin'g 

 but a mixture between the Poa trivialis and the Alopecurus 

 pratensis, and that its extraordinary length arises from the 

 richness of the soil, and from the annual irrigation of the 

 meadow with the water of a spring, which, having the high 

 temperature of 48° or 49*^ Fahr., necessarily gives an uncom- 

 mon stimulus to vegetation; {Withering'' s Arra7igerncnt of' 

 Briiiah Planls, 2, p. 190.) 



3 ' 



