1230 
MESSRS. J. B. LAWES, J. H. GILBERT, AND M. T. MASTERS, 
yields but a scanty herbage. It is protogynous, and flowers so early that it is enabled 
to ripen seed before most other grasses. It is ordinarily found on dry pastures. 
The characters specially favourable to it are its hardy constitution and its early 
growth, which enable it to occupy the ground before many of its associates, and to 
secure an early crop of seedlings. Its comparatively superficial roots enable it to avail 
itself of the food materials in the surface soil. 
The following Table (XXXVII.) shows the plots upon which this grass was second 
or third (it was never first) in order of predominance (see p. 1227) among the grasses 
in either of the years of complete botanical separation : it also shows the actual per¬ 
centages on those plots on which in the same years it yielded 5 per cent,, or more, of 
the total mixed herbage. 
In this and all subsequent tables of the kind relating to individual grasses, it is the 
order of predominance in the total gramineous produce, not in the total mixed herbage 
of all orders, that is represented, But as the total grasses predominate so uniformly 
over the species referable to all other Orders put together, and as, with only one 
exception, the grass which is first, second, or third among the grasses is also first, 
second, or third in the total herbage, the result would be practically the same in the 
tables relating to the grasses, whichever standard of predominance were adopted. As 
will be seen further on, however, it would be quite otherwise in the case of the 
Legutninosse and of plants belonging to other Orders. The percentages are, however, 
those in the total mixed herbage. When a dash thus — appears in the tables the 
plots in question had not then been brought under experiment. 
Table XXXVII. — -Relative predominance of Anthoxanthum odoratum. 
1 
Anthoxanthum odoratum 
Was First, Second, or Third, 
among the total Grasses, as under. 
Yielded 5 per cent, and oyer, 
to the total Mixed Herbage, as under. 
1862. 
1867. 
1872. 
1877. 
1862. 
1867. 
1872. 
1877. 
r i . . 
3 
5-78 
13-88 
2 . . 
, , 
. , 
6-67 
7’20 
3 . . 
2 
8-66 
5'gO 
512 
1 
4-1 . 
3 
7T6 
5*11 
4-2 . 
, 
5-52 
. . 
. . 
5 . . 
3 
*3 
3 
5*77 
5*51 
, , 
Plots- 
6 . . 
8 . . 
3 
3 
3 
6-98 
6-22 
7-94 
7-55 
10 . . 
.. 
• • 
5-27 
5-84 
12 . . 
2 
3 
7*66 
6-67 
5*47 
17 . . 
. , 
5-32 
18 . . 
_ 
— 
, . 
711 
8-64 
19 , . 
_ 
_ 
— 
— 
6-39 
. . 
120 . . 
— 
— 
— 
— 
7T7 
f • 
f First . . 
Total < Second 
L Third . . 
0 
0 
0 
0 
1 
0 
2 
0 
o 
> 1 
7 
9 
9 
0 
3 
4 
2 
J 
