Introduced. Annual. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: July to August.

Seed-time: August to September.

Range: Nova Scotia to Ontario, southward to Virginia.

Habitat: Gardens, roadsides, waste places.

First grown in this country as food for caged birds and for making a flour which is used as sizing in cotton manufacture (weaver's glue), this grass has been spread rather extensively through the accidental mixture of its seeds with better grasses; it is worthless as hay or green forage. (Fig. 13.)

Culms one to three feet tall, erect, usually simple but sometimes branched, smooth. Sheaths shorter than the internodes, rough, loose, the ligules rounded and about one line long; blades three inches to a foot long, nearly a half-inch wide, flat, very rough. Spike a short, dense head, about an inch long and nearly half as thick, the flattened, one-flowered spikelets crowded and overlapping; glumes ovate, keeled, white with green veins. Seeds oblong, smooth, shining, well known as the familiar bird food.

Means Of Control

Prevent seed production, and the weed must disappear as soon as all dormant seeds have been stirred to germination and destroyed.