within this district at all, so that, while useful, they served the purpose only partially.
Several years of intensive study of the grasses over an area including the lower Ottawa valley, the island of Montreal, parts of the Laurentian and Appalachian highlands, the Laurentian plain and adjoining upland south of the St. Lawrence River bordering Vermont and New York State in the Province of Quebec, and the district surrounding Ottawa in the Province of Ontario, have led to the preparation of this bulletin covering the pasture and meadow grasses of the area.
2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A number of keys to the grasses in the vegetative stage have been published since 1863 when, according to Ward (1901), the first systematic study of the non-flowering parts of grasses was made by Jessen in Germany. Twenty-six years later a beautifully illustrated treatise on the vegetative parts of some of the more important grasses of Switzerland was published by Stebler and Schröter (1889).
McAlpine in 1890 wrote a report on the identification of grasses by their leaves and Ward (1901) prepared a classification of the grasses based on vegetative and anatomical characters. Lewton-Brain (1904) followed with an illustrated account of the anatomy of the fifty-one British grasses. In his book on Agricultural Botany, Percival (1916) included a key to seventeen species of English grasses.
Carrier (1917) compiled a key to forty-eight grasses common in eastern United States. This key proved of more practical value for field work in eastern Canada than any other available key.
In 1921 Armstrong published a key to the common British grasses using four main pairs of differentiating characters.
Schindler (1925) of Austria used microscopic features in all extensive key to the grasses based on cross-sections of leaf blades.
Two of the most comprehensive keys to be published on the grasses in the non-flowering condition are by Henning (Sweden 1930) classifying seventy-four species and by Huber (Germany 1931 ) classifying forty-four species.
Whyte ( 1930) published a key to nineteen British grasses in which sheath colour and pubescence are used as important distinguishing characters,.
Three important contributions came from the United States within two years. The first by Norton (1930) contains keys to numerous grasses of Maryland in both flowering and non-flowering stages. The second is by Keim, Beadle and Frolik (1932) on the prairie hay grasses of Nebraska. The third is by Copple and Aldous (1932), which, although limited to twenty-six grasses of Kansas, is outstanding in the completeness of its illustrations of the vegetative parts.
