F. S. NOWOSAD1, D. E. NEWTON SWALES2, and W. G. DORE3.
Abstract:-This bulletin presents a key for the identification of thirty-nine grasses of pastures and meadows of eastern Canada. Characters of the vegetative parts such as sheath, auricles, collar, ligule, and blade are used for their separation. Detailed descriptions of these parts and diagrams illustrating the ligule region are given for each species. The anatomical structure of typical blades is illustrated by camera lucida drawings.
1. INTRODUCTION
Research on methods of improving pastures and meadows is becoming more and more important in eastern Canada, where successive years of grazing and cropping have seriously depleted the soil of the mineral elements required for plant growth. Experiments are being conducted in several parts of Canada and many parts of the United States on the reaction of the pasture flora to soil, grazing, fertilization and management. These experiments necessitate a study of the succession of plant species and the changes in the relative area occupied by each species from year to year. Such changes in the vegetation cannot be satisfactorily followed by general observations but must be calculated by some more specific method, such as the quadrat method. The use of the quadrat in grazed pastures involves the Identification of plant species by their above ground parts in the vegetative stage. The grasses are the most difficult of these species to identify in the flowerless condition.
A practical study of the pasture flora in parts of western Quebec and eastern Ontario revealed the fact that none of the available keys to the grasses in their vegetative condition was satisfactory for use in this district. The several excellent keys published both abroad and in the United States included only a few of the grasses of this region and many not occurring
1Formerly Graduate Assistant in Agronomy, Macdonald College, now Assistant Agricultural Scientist, Division of Forage Plants, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada.
2 Formerly Lecturer in Plant Pathology, Macdonald College, Que.
3 Formerly Graduate Assistant in Agronomy, Macdonald College, now Lecturer in Botany, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
