PLATE LII.
P O A. A N N U A. | Spec. Plant.
Common Poa.
Spec. Char. Panicle upright; branches in pairs; leaves flat, reclining, and wrinkled.
This is the grass that makes its appearance so often, and so unwelcomed, in our gardens and gravel
walks, and insinuates itself so plentifully in the pavements of our courts • and streets, much to the
annoyance of our neat and tidy citizens: we often remark that although seemingly every vestige is
eradicated from our pavements in spring, and which is afterwards exposed to the broiling of .a summer’s
sun, yet that the succeeding, spring produces an abundant crop! this would not be the case
perhaps with any other grass; but as Poa annua reposes not, but vegetates during the severity of
winter, its seed ripens, and is shed by the latter end of March, and even before the weeding commences
; and probably during eight months in the year it ripens, and deposits its seed.—— Perhaps
amid the number o f grasses selected as fitting for pasturage, none are more valuable than this common
Poa, as a feeding, not a cutting grass; its herbage is too short, nor has it bent enough for that purpose,
but seems well adapted for every other end; it is very productive, * and one o f our sweetest
and tenderest grasses."- -In laying down a field, it would perhaps be advisable to have a large portion
o f the see'd of Poa annua mixed with the other grasses, because it vegetates nearly at all seasons of
the year; and the number of its fibrous roots enables it not only to draw continual nourishment from
the soil, but at the same time hold it so firmly in the earth that no frost detaches it (which we believe
to be the case with several other grasses less firmly held, and which are then killed from the pastures
by the bleak winds of spring), and it thus becomes a support to its needful neighbour in winter, and
by its plentiful foliage preserves a certain degree of humidity during die exhalations of summer: the
common Poa not being perennial is of little moment, in regard to the uses here hinted at, as its seeds
being shed at various periods, it supplies a constant progeny of all ages.
This Poa may be called almost an universal plant, as no situation or soil is exempt from it, a circumstance
that can hardly be claimed by any other plant; were its seeds furnished with alae (winged),
or calculated to be conveyed by the air more than those of other grasses, it would not be so remarkable;
but when we see it insinuate itself between the hardly perceptible crevices of walls, flagged
pavements, &c. or wherever the smallest portion of earth is found, it is not unworthy of some comment.
The panicle in autumn and winter is generally tinted with pink, but in the spring and
summer months it assumes a brown unpleasant hue: the foliage is generally wrinkled and puckered,
a singularity not observable in any other species o f this genus.
A, a Spiket.
B, the valves of the Calyx..
C, the Corolla.
* It appears by experiments in the Gramina Pascua of Mr. Swayne, that P. annua maintains a very conspicuous rank
ih regard to product, even when contrasted with its Titanic neighbours of the field.