440 
(species of cartx, <fcc.) now generally suffered to grow in our marshes. 
* 
62. Glycekia Fluitans. JR,. Brown. 
Syn.—F estuca fluitans, Linn. Poa fluitans, Scopol. Manna-grass. 
Spikelets seven to thirteen-flowered linear terete appressed to the 
branches; lower palea oblong, obtuse, rather longer than the blunt two¬ 
toothed upper one; panicle secund, slightly branched, divaricate; sta¬ 
mens three; ligule lon<j; culm flattened. Perennial; flowers in June. 
Culms 2 to 5 feet long. In shallow water of swamps and marshes. 
Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and about Lake 
Superior. A native also of Europe. 
Cultivated in Europe about alluvial marshes and in the margins of 
streams and ponds, for which places it is well suited; and it affords an 
early, sweet and nutritious grass. Its seeds afford food for water fowls 
and flsh, and are used as an article of human food under the name of 
manna seeds , or Mavne de Prusse. They are esteemed a delicacy in 
* 
soups and gruels. When ground into meal it affords bread, but little 
inferior to that from wheat. 
Plate I, fig. 7.—a, spikelet; b, a flower; c, glumes; d, lower palea; 
e, upper palea; /, cross section of the same; g, the germ, showing also 
the stamens, stigmas, &c. 
The following is the analysis of this species of grass made by Prof. 
Emmons,* of Albany, N. Y. The a&h contained : 
Silicic acid. 35 250 
Phosphates. 19 350 
Liinc. 0 055 
Magnesia. 0 025 
Potash. 9,130 
Soda. 19,840 
Sodium. ],C05 
Chlorine. 2,445 
Sul) huric acid. 8.910 
Organic acids. 2,450 
Loss. 0 940 
10J,0U0 
VAg. of N. Y., Vol. 2, p. 78. 
