C YNOSURUS .
Gene. Char. Calyx with two valves, and several florets; the individual receptacle leafy,
and alternate, on the side o f the rachis. Gen. Plant.
CYNOSURUS CRISTATUS.{ ^ . p u n , .
Crested Dog s-tail-grass.
Spec. Char. Spike strap-shaped; fence pinnatified; floret valves without aristae.
A lmost all dry uplands abound with this grass, and it is perhaps in those situations as valuable as
any we possess, as it produces much good herbage in which cattle delight, and being mixed with the
Festuca duriuscula, forms the best pasturage for sheep; it is not an early grass, but welcome when it
arrives.------ It is this Cynosurus which gives that autumnal brown hue to the pastures which have been
fed, the spike being so strongly armed that it is rejected by cattle for the sweeter herbage that clothes
the roots; and thus perhaps to half the plants in the field is left a flowering head, remaining through
the winter, but decaying in the following spring.------ The strong pectinated fence that arises from the
side of the common receptacle wraps up the florets like an armed hand, and they remain uninjured
under that safeguard.---- -This is the only pasture grass for which nature seems to have fabricated a
peculiar apparatus to defend from injury, giving a calyx to cradle as it were the infant florets, and
surrounding it with a fence to protect them when matured.------Mechanism like this must cause admiration
! and the next transition o f an active mind is to conjecture the purport of such ordinations,
but most frequently in the end humiliates the proud philosophy of man; yet this we know, that for
our use it was created, that perfection formed it, and declared it to be very good.
The sets of florets in this species are generally in pairs, each set with its bractea, but we occasionally
find them disposed by threes, and then the rachis is almost hidden by the expansion of the bracteae;
and possibly this variety is the f gramen cristatum gradatum,’ &c. o f Ray.
A, the armed Fence.
B, a spike o f Florets.
C, the Calyx.
D, the valves o f a Floret.
E„ theGermin, Nectarium, &c.