HAWAII AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 



HONOLULU, HAWAII 



Under the joint supervision of the 

 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 

 AND THE UNIVERSITY OF HAW An 



BULLETIN No. 65 



Washington, D. C. June 1933 



RANGE GRASSES OF HAWAII 



By J. C. Ripperton, Chemist, R. A. Goff, Extension Agent, Island of Hawaii, 

 D. W. Edwards, Junior Chemist, and W. C. Davis, Junior Scientific Aide. 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction. 1 



Description of grasses 2 



Composition 52 



Page 



List of grasses, by scientific name 56 



List of grasses, by common name 57 



Literature cited 58 



INTRODUCTION 



During the early years of its existence, beginning in 1901, the 

 Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station was actively engaged in in- 

 troducing various improved grasses and range plants into the Hawaiian 

 Islands, and had the generous cooperation of the Office of Foreign 

 Seed and Plant Introduction, now known as the Office of Foreign 

 Plant Introduction, of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 which furnished numerous lots of seed of grasses and other forage 

 crops for trial. The work was supplemented to a large extent by 

 many local ranchmen, who placed their respective ranges at the dis- 

 posal of the station for testing the introductions in comparison with 

 the native grasses. 



Nearly all of the more progressive ranchmen of the islands have 

 introduced new species of grasses on their ranges. As a result, many 

 improved American and European grasses are now established on the 

 higher levels, where soil and climatic conditions more nearby approach 

 those of the Temperate Zone than do the conditions elsewhere in 

 Hawaii; and introductions from Africa, Australia, and India have 

 greatly improved the grass ranges of the lower levels, particularly in 

 the drier regions. 



Shorey (ll), 1 former chemist of the station, analyzed the more im- 

 portant local grasses in 1906, and found some of them deficient in 

 lime and other mineral constituents. McClelland (8) in 1915 summa- 

 rized the status of the early introductions. Since that time additional 

 kinds of grasses have been introduced into the Territory, and methods 

 of range management have undergone some changes. Dividing the 

 range into paddocks with the resultant resting and reseeding of the 

 grasses, and developing fattening paddocks by intensive methods of 



Italic numbers in parentheses refer to Literature Cited, p. 58. 

 162845°— 33 1 



1 



