Home1778 Edition

POA

Volume 8 · 127 words · 1778 Edition

MEADOW-GRASS; a genus of the digynia order, belonging to the pentandra clas of plants. There are 20 species; most of them grasses, and very agreeable food for cattle; for one species which grows in marshes, the cattle will frequently go so deep as to endanger their lives. This is called the aquatica, or water reed-grass. It is the largest of the British grasses, growing to the height of five or six feet. The leaves are smooth, and half an inch wide, or more. The panicle is eight or ten inches long, greatly branched, and decked with numerous spicula: these are of a reddish-brown colour intermixed with green, of a compressed lanceolate form, imbricated with about six flowers for the most part, but varying from five to ten.