342 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
by this means the grass is kept green and fit for mowing all this 
long period. Whether this young growth from the joints be owing 
to the horizontal position of the straw, or whether it is a confirma- 
tion of that doctrine that the joints of plants are seed-vessels, I 
leave to naturalists to determine.” : | 
From the description as here cited it seems not unnatural to 
suppose that spikelets may be hidden from the beginning at the 
joints of the grass, and that they may shoot up as stated when the 
grass has lodged; though it would seem to be still more probable 
that the growth noticed by Eliot was nothing more than a particu- 
lar instance of the well-known method of propagation known to 
gardeners as layering, —7. e. new shoots, and new roots also, may 
have struck out from each of the joints of the recumbent grass, 
although no spikelets had begun to grow there before the grass was 
thrown down. — 
