Nuttalls Reed Grass
In the wet meadows Nuttall's Reed-grass (Calamagrostis cinnoides) is found in midsummer. A stout, reedlike grass is this species, with broader leaves than Bluejoint, and with contracted panicles which in the sunlight look as if they had been dipped in dye of royal purple, so deeply coloured are the tips of the individual spikelets. The leaves of this grass are occasionally tinged with red as are, here and there, those of other summer grasses that thus anticipate the brilliancy of autumn.
The flowering scales of these grasses are surrounded by soft hairs, and among these hairs the slender awn of Bluejoint is almost lost. In Nuttall's Reed-grass the stouter awn is readily seen under the microscope, as is also the prolonged rachilla which bears a tiny thistle-head of white hairs at its summit.