is considered a variety of the tall Fescue grass (Festuca elatior), which is taller, stouter, and inore reed-like. (See Plate XI.)

GLYCERIA AQUATICA-Reed Meadow grass.

This grass has a stout, erect, leafy culm, 3 to 4 feet high. The leaves are a foot or two long, one-quarter to half an inch wide, flat, and usually somewhat rough, especially on the edges.

The panicle is much branched, large, 9 to 15 inches long, the branches arranged in half whorls alternately on the rachis, at first erect, but spreading with age. The spikelets are oblong, about a quarter of an inch long, 5 to 9 flowered, with capillary pedicels. The lower third of the branches is naked. The glumes are unequal, 1 nerved, and somewhat obtuse. The lower palet is obtuse, strongly 7 nerved, and entire at the apex. The upper palet is somewhat 2 toothed, and about as long as the lower.

Hon. J. S. Gould says:

This grass is made into hay, which is liked by cattle. It flowers in July: it is found in most parts of Europe, and is widely diffused in this country in wettish meadows.

It may be doubted whether the European grass of this name is identical with the American one, although certainly very similar. (See Plate XII.)

GLYCERIA NERVATA-Nerved Meadow grass.

This is similar in appearance and habit to the preceding, but smaller. The culms are 2 to 3 feet high, usually somewhat decumbent below, often branching and rooting at the lower joints. It varies greatly in size and in the magnitude of the panicle. It usually grows along the wet margins of streams in close patches. The panicle is from 4 to 8 inches long, nodding when young, loose and spreading with capillary branches. The leaves are 8 to 12 inches long, and 2 to 3 lines wide. The spikelets are small, about 5 flowered, oblong, becoming purplish with age. The upper glume is 3 nerved and obtuse, the lower rather acute and scarious on the margin. The lower palets are truncate-obtuse, and prominently 7 nerved; the upper one 2 toothed at the apex. It is a very common grass in moist grounds and swamps, extending to the Rocky Mountains and northward to Alaska. (See Plate XIII.)

POA COMPRESSA-Wire grass, Blue grass.

This species has sometimes been confounded with the Kentucky Blue grass (Poa pratensis), from which it differs in many particulars. It is found in many old pastures, on dry banks, and in open woods,

The culms are hard and much flattened, 1 foot to 18 inches long, mora or less decumbent and bent at several of the lower joints. The leaves are scanty, smooth, short, and of a dark, bluish green color. The paniele is short and contracted, 1 to 3 inches long. The branches are in pairs or threes, short and rough, and frequently one-sided. The spikejets are ovate-oblong, flat, short-pediceled, and generally 5 to 6 flowered. The glumes are acnte, 3 nerved, often tinged with purple.

The lower palets are 3 to 5 nerved, the lower part of the nerves finely hairy. At the base of the florets a delicate web of hairs is usually press

sent.

This species may be distinguished from Poa pratensis by its flattened

decumbent stems, shorter leaves, shorter and narrower panicle, with fewer brauches. It forms a looser turf, but has a firm hold by means of its creeping rhizoma.

Very contradictory accounts have been given as to its agricultural value, some denouncing it as worthless and others speaking well of it. Hon. J. S. Gould says, respecting it:

It is certain that cows that feed upon it both in pasture and in hay give more milk and keep in better condition than when fed on any other grass. Horses fed on this hay will do as well as when fed on timothy hay and oats combined.

(See Plate XIV.)

AVENA STRIATA-Wild Oat grass.

This grass grows on rocky hills in New England and New York. The culms are about 2 feet high, smooth and slender. The leaves are narrow, and 4 to 6 inches long; the panicle is slender and drooping; the upper 2 or 3 branches single, undivided, and short-pediceled; the lower branches in twos or threes, with longer pedicels. The upper branches have each only a single spikelet, which is to inch long, and 3 to 6 flowered. The glumes are much shorter than the flowers, thin, scarious margined, purplish, and acute. Each of the flowers has a short tuft of hairs at the base. The lower palet is 7 nerved, 4 lines long, with a sharply 2-toothed apex, just below which rises a slender bent awn. The upper palet is acute, shorter than the lower, with two marginal fringed

nerves.

This grass belongs to the same genus as the cultivated oats, which is Avena sativa. Its range is to the northward, being addicted to a cool elevated country. Its productiveness and value for agricultural purposes has not been tested. (See Plate XV.)

DANTHONIA SPICATA-Spiked Wild Oat grass.

This grass grows in small clumps on barren bills or in poor clay lands. The leaves are mostly in a tuft near the ground, short, narrow, and curled in dry weather. The culms are 13 to 2 feet high, erect and slender. The panicle is only an inch or two long, mostly simple, and of 4 to 7 spikelets, with very short pedicels. It is a very poor grass. Hon. J. S. Gould

says:

As it will grow on hard clay lands where nothing else will, it might be worth while to sow its seed on such lands, as it is certainly better than nothing, but the better plan is to manure the soil so that it will produce the richer grasses.

(See Plate XVI.)

DANTHONIA COMPRESSA-Compressed Oat grass.

This species was discovered and described in 1868 by Mr. C. F. Austin. It grows in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. Mr. C. G. Pringle sends it from Vermont, growing on dry hillocks along the Waterbury River. It also grows on the summit of the Roan Mountain, North Carolina, over large areas, and furnishes good summer pasturage. Probably it occurs on the other mountains of the Alleghany Range. It differs from the preceding species in forming a compact sod, by having more numerous and larger leaves, by a longer and more spreading paniele, and by the two long, slender teeth on each side of the awn of the flowers. (See Plate XVII.)

PHALARIS INTERMEDIA-American Canary grass.

This species resembles the Canary grass (Phalaris canariensis), which produces the seed commonly sold as food for Canary birds. It is, however, a taller and more robust species, growing 2 to 3 feet high, with a stout, erect culm, and broadly linear leaves, which are from 4 to 10 inches long. The spike is oblong and compact, 1 or 2 inches long, or in the variety angustata it is narrow and cylindrical, 3 or 4 inches long, and more or less interrupted at the lower part. The spikelets are 3 flowered, the 2 lower flowers being imperfect and reduced to 2 hairy scales. The upper flower is perfect, consisting of 2 boat-shaped palets which become thick and hard, and 2 nearly equal, narrowly-keeled glumes which are one-third longer than the ovate hairy flower.

This species grows in South Carolina and the Gulf States, extending to Texas, and then stretching across to the Pacific coast and occurring through California and Oregon. It has frequently been sent us from the Southern States as a valuable winter grass.

Mr. Thomas W. Beaty, of Conwayborough, S. C., sent specimens for analysis, and says:

The grass I send you was planted last September, and the specimens were cut on the 9th instant (March). You will notice that it is heading out, and is just now in a right condition for mowing. It is wholly a winter grass, dying down in the latter part of April and first of May, and it seems to me should be a great thing for the South if properly introduced and cultivated, or rather the ground properly prepared and the seed sown at the right time. It would afford the best of green pasturage for sheep and cattle all winter. It is what we call Gilbert's Relief grass.

Many years ago Dr. Lincecum, of Texas, experimented with this grass, and recommended it highly. (See the Patent Office Report for 1860.) In California the grass is called California timothy, and is said to have no agricultural value. It is an annual or biennial. (See Plate XVIII.)

ANTHOXAUTHUM ODORATUM-Sweet Vernal grass.

A perennial grass, much employed as a part of mixed lawn grasses, and also in meadows. It grows thinly on the ground, with slender culms, seldom more than 1 foot to 18 inches in height, and scanty in foliage. The panicle is close and narrow, except that it expands considerably during flowering time. The spikelets consist of two thin keeled glumes, of which the lower is only about half the length of the upper, and the upper closely incloses the flowers, of which there are two or three in each spikelet; only the central or upper one is perfect, and the two lower ones reduced to an awned hairy palet on each side of the perfect flower.

The perfect flower consists of two small unawned palets, two stamens, and two styles. The awn of one of the imperfect flowers is long and twisted, that of the other is shorter and straight. It is very fragrant, and gives a pleasant odor to hay which contains it.

Mr. J. Stanton Gould says:

It is nowhere considered a very valuable variety for hay, as the culms are wide apart, very thin, and bear but few leaves; hence it gives a light crop of hay.

(See Plate XIX.)

DACTYLIS GLOMERATA.Orchard grass.

This is one of the most popular meadow grasses of Europe, and is well known to most farmers in the Northern and Eastern States.

It is a perennial grass, of strong, rank growth, about 3 feet high, the culm and leaves roughish, the leaves broadly linear, light green, and 5 or 6 on a culm.

The panicle is generally but 2 or 3 inches long, the upper part dense from the shortness of the branches, the lower branches longer and spreading, but with the spikelets glomerated or tufted closely together. The spikelets are usually 3 to 4 flowered, one sided, on short rough pedicels. The glumes are pointed and somewhat unequal, the upper one being smaller and thinner than the lower. The lower palet in each flower is ovate-lanceolate, roughish, and ending in a sharp point or short awu, and is rather longer than the glumes.

Mr. J. S. Gould says, respecting this grass:

The testimony that has been collected from all parts of the world for two centuries past establishes the place of this species among the very best of our forage grasses, and we have not the shadow of a doubt that the interests of our graziers and dairymen would be greatly promoted by its more extended cultivation. It is always found in the rich old pastures of England, where an acre of land can be relied upon to fatten a bullock and four sheep. It is admirably adapted for growing in the shade, no grass being equal to it in this respect except rough-stalked meadow grass (Poa trivialis.)

(See Plate XX.)

BOUTELOUA OLIGOSTACHYA-Grama grass.

The name Grama grass is given to several species of Bouteloua growing on the great plains of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the high table-lands of Texas. They are valuable grasses for grazing purposes, but they grow too short and too thinly to be advantageous for hay. They grow in bunches with a mass of short leaves at the base. The principal characters of the B. oligostachya are as follows:

The culmis or stalks are from 1 to 13 feet high. Near the top there are usually two or three, sometimes more, curved flower spikes, about 14 inches long, consisting of numerous sessile flowers closely set on one side of the stalk or rachis. The spikelets consist of the pair of glumes, one perfect flower, and one or two neutral or rudimentary ones. The palets of the perfect flower are two or three toothed or awned at the apex.

Although this is one of the most valuable of grasses for the western plains, it has never been successfully cultivated in the moister districts of the sea-coast. (See Plate XXI.)

SPARTINA CYNOSUROIDES-Fresh-water Cord grass.

This species much resembles the salt reed or marsh grass of the Atlan tic coast, which is much valued for making marsh hay. The fresh-water Cord grass grows away from the sea-coast, and in the Western States becomes very plentiful, forming a large part of the product of the sloughs or wet marshes of that region. It is a perennial, tall, coarse, and stout grass, growing from 3 to 5 feet high, with leaves 2 or 3 feet long. It is frequently cut for hay, but is a very coarse inferior article unless cut when very young. It gives good feed very early in the spring, but becomes so coarse as soon to be rejected by the cattle when anything better is procurable. In the bottom lands of the Mississippi it is abundant, and has to some extent been manufactured into paper. The top of the culm for about one foot is occupied by from 5 to 10 or more flower spikes, which are from 1 to 3 inches long, and consist each of two rows of closely set spikelets on one side of the rachis. The spikelets are each

1-flowered, flattened laterally; the glumes linear-lanceolate and awlpointed, the upper one very rough on the keel, and twice the length of the lower. The two palets are nearly equal, and about the length of the lower glume. (See Plate XXII.)

MUHLENBERGIA GLOMERATA.

This grass grows in wet swampy grounds, chiefly in the northern and western portions of the United States. It is found in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, and some varieties of it in Texas and New Mexico.

The typical form is 2 to 3 feet high, stiffly erect and unbranched, generally purplish below the joints. The culm is hard, somewhat compressed, and very leafy. The panicle is narrow, 2 to 4 inches long, composed of numerous close clusters of flowers, becoming looser, and sometimes interrupted below, forming an interrupted glomerate spike. The spikelets are 1-flowered and closely sessile in the glomerules or clusters. The glumes are linear-lanceolate, gradually tapering into an awn or bristle of equal length. The flower is one-third to one-half shorter than the glumes, hairy at the base and lower part. The palets are unequal and very acute. The root stalk or rhizoma is hard and knotty, and furnished with numerous short, firm shoots or stolons.

In the Eastern States it is utilized as one of the native products of wet meadows in the making of what is called wild hay. Specimens have been sent from Colorado and Kansas, and recommended as an excellent grass for hay. (See Plate XXIII.)

CINNA ARUNDINACEA-Wood Reed grass.

A perennial grass with erect, simple culms from 3 to 6 feet high, and a creeping rhizoma, growing in swamps and moist shaded woods.

The panicle is from 6 to 12 inches long, rather loose and open in flower, afterwards more close. The branches in fours and fives, spreading in flower; after, more erect. The spikelets are 1-flowered, much flattened, crowded in the panicle, and somewhat purplish in color. The glumes are lanceolate, acute, and strongly keeled, the lower rather shorter, the uppera little longer than the palets. The flower is visibly stalked in the glumes, smooth and naked; the palets auch like the glumes, the lower one longer than the upper, and sometimes having a short awn on the back, or sometimes naked. The leaves are broadly linear lanceolate, about 1 foot long, 4 to 6 lines wide, and with a conspicuous elongated ligule.

This leafy stemmed grass furnishes a large quantity of fodder, but experiments are wanting to determine its availability under cultivation. (See Plate XXIV.)

TRICUSPIS PURPUREA-Sand grass.

This is an annual grass, growing in tufts in sandy ground along the Atlantic coast, and also on the sandy shores of some of the lakes and rivers of the interior. The culms are about 1 foot in height, rather decumbent at the base, with numerous (8 to 10) short joints, and a corresponding number of narrow awl-shaped leaves 2 to 3 inches long, which are bearded with hairs at the top of the sheaths. There are usually seyeral lateral panicles of flowers, as well as a terminal one. The lateral ones are inclosed within the sheaths; the terminal one usually exserted, but short and simple. The spikelets are 2 to 5 flowered, the glumes