P H L E UM.
Gene. Char. Calyx with two valves; valves truncated, terminating in points, containing
one floret. Flo. Brit.
PHLEUM PRATENSE.
Meadow Cat’s-tail.
Spec. Char. Spike cylindrical, long; calyx bristled; bristles as long as the terminating point
o f the valve.
The meadow Cat’s-tail will ever rank high amidst the valuable plants that constitute the herbage of
our low lands, but will not attain to that eminence that might have been expected from the heated
recommendations of Le Roque.------ As a cutting grass, its merits are equal to any. When cattle are
turned into a pasture they are frequently dainty in the choice o f their food, and will not eat till necessitated
many of the coarser grasses; horses in particular will be observed to graze in patches, or near
the edges o f pathways, where the sweeter grasses Poae, Cynosurus, &c. are found, and which are more
grateful to their appetites (for animals are often as dainty as man), rejecting Holcus, Phleum, Dactylis;
but when they are cut down and made into hay, the excellence of the tender and sweeter grasses is lost
in the promiscuous assemblage; and it is in such cases that the luxuriant grasses will always be found
most valuable, producing plenty of food, good and nourishing, provender for the cow and ox (the
peasant and the labourer) who require a quantity, nor are they so apt to select and choose.----------
P. pratense is rather a late grass, but yet produces plenty of herbage by the time that the scythe is
generally applied. It flourishes much in low and peaty lands, and in moist damp soil£ and thus we
find it retaining a verdure later than the upland grasses.------In dry gravelly uplands it becomes knotty
and geniculated at the base, and dwarfish in stature, and hence its virtues are by no means conspipuous,
or bear any comparison with the same plant in a humid situation.------ The filaments which
connect the antherae are very long, and they are frequently entangled by the bristles o f the calyx, and
thus the antherae lie close to the stigmata and perfect the seed.------ In very dry situations, particularly
in sandy downs by the sea, Phleum pratense becomes a very diminutive plant, with a small ovate head,
and the root will be found to consist o f two or three bulbous joints: this variety has been by some
writers arranged as a species, under the name of P. nodosum. Fig. 2.
A, the Calyx.
B, the Floret Valves.
C, the Germin, Filaments, &c.