HARDWICKE'S 8CIEN CE-GOS SIP. 



177 



a separate treatise. Some, though not all, I am 

 pleased to find, have not altogether been passed 

 by in "Half-hours in the Green Lanes." Still I 

 would not, as there, have noticed them thus pro- 

 miscuously. They are deserving of more special 

 notice; and not only so, but by being taken in 

 some more distinct way, I think it would have a 

 tendency to revive what I fear will otherwise soon 

 become a hopelessly forsaken study. Eor I should 

 think that there is no class of plants — save i^erhaps 

 the Umbelliferce — whose study is moie neglected, 

 and of which many are so " familiarly ignorant," as 

 the grasses, to which might also be added that of 

 their glumacean friends and near allies, the sedges. 

 Therefore, if for nothing else than to show the 

 characters whereby to discriminate between such 

 two natural and nearly allied orders as these — 

 Cyperacece and Gramiuecp. — it would effect some 

 good and dissipate much existing ignorance. How 

 often, sadly often it is, that we see people — and 

 many professed students of botany too — confound- 

 ing grasses for sedges, and vice versa. 



Certainly the grasses have much to contend 

 against in gaining equal attention with tlieir more 

 attractive and conspicuous flowering brethren I 

 know. They have not, for instance, that same 

 beauty and diversity of colour, of leaf, and of form. 

 Then, again, they are more complex, demanding 

 greater and more careful research, and these are 

 points which, I am sorry to say, are allowed to 

 weigh too seriously with many. In point of fact^ 

 these " botanically despised " plants seem to ask 

 them, as it were, too many questions, often requir- 

 ing them to discriminate between panicles, racemes, 

 spikes and spikelets, between glume and glumellas, 

 between barren and fertile florets, and the like. 

 Others, again, will despairingly say, as an objection, 

 that they are a large family of one natural order, of 

 many (forty-four or so) genera ; and, what is worse, 

 of still more species. Whilst others, taking 

 another view, will say they are such a " strikingly " 

 alike family, that they do not care to graduate and 

 wade through all the points, in which one species 

 diflers from another, much more to retain them in 

 mind, intervening between Anthoxanthum and 

 Digitaria. They think to carry in eye and mind the 

 minute differences which exist between one species 

 of poa and another, is quite puzzling enough ; or 

 even, it may be, what is less, between the two 

 quaking grasses {Briza media et Briza minor). But 

 another objector still will say that their difl'erences, 

 in many cases, are so apparently hidden that one 

 needs to "microscope" the eye to detect them. 

 Alas! alas! that all such parties should forget the 

 habits of discrimination and observation they are 

 thereby omitting to form; the opportunities 

 neglected of improving and strengthening theij. 

 memories — all of them, I am sure, qualities of too 

 invaluable worth not to be contended for, parti- 



cularly by such as desire to prosecute the study of 

 any science successfully, be it that of botany or any 

 other. 



VVith regard to botanists, whose knowledge of 

 most other plants seems somewhat advanced, and 

 with whom no "plant" specimen, save it be com- 

 prehended in the class they most admire, seems to 

 be admitted by them as a fit object for the designate 

 of " find" must, I should think, be well nigh ignor- 

 ing, or denying altogether the existence of the 

 botanical claim and interest of the grasses. Still, of 

 those to whom the science forms a branch of study 

 at all, 1 think, for my own part, it argues but very 

 little for the enthusiasm with which they approach 

 the subject, and especially in such cases where they 

 are content with a " popularly known " knowledge 

 of such grasses, a sweet-scented vernal grass, An- 

 thoxanthum odoratum, and quaking grass, — grasses 

 which from the attractive character each possesses, 

 have seemed to have monopolized to themselves 

 the attention of almost everybody — botanical and 

 unbotanical alike — and this, based no doubt upon 

 their severally forming two such fitting representa- 

 tives of the odoriferous and graceful of our British 

 grasses. 



Another grass, even commoner than either of the 

 preceding, but not nearly so commonly known 

 among us, we have in the annual meadow grass, Poa 

 annua. This little perennial seems to assert itself 

 almost everywhere ; and, though it cannot be 

 said to possess in any degree the odour of the 

 sweet-scented vernal grass, or the grace of the 

 quaking grass, nevertheless it has that wherein 

 it doth glory. For if I were asked to name that 

 grass which of all others most truthfully emblema- 

 tized and claimed the comparison expressed in the 

 saying as " green as grass," I sliould at once, and 

 most unhesitatingly, point you to this. 



Erom these it would now be very easy to descant 

 on such characteristically-named grasses as Fox-tail, 

 Cat's-tail,Dog's-tail,Hare's-tail,down to the Finger- 

 grass, all of them names which, to most, I dare say, 

 are as yet better known in connection with, and as 

 pertaining to such objects as animals rather than 

 plants. To such, then, in conclusion let me say, 

 seek to extend your knowledge of created things — 

 of plants and animals alike — and learn not to 

 respect one part of the Creator's works as being 

 more worthy of your study and admiration than 

 another, and in so doing I doubt not that you 

 will be continually discovering fresh reasons for 

 magnifying the Creator of all things more and more, 

 and these as abundantly afforded in the study of our 

 British grasses as in any other one of God's works. 



Wicker, Sheffield. John Hakrison. 



" All animals are normally attired in that dress 

 which is m.ost suitable to their respective conditions 

 and habitations."— /F'/^«//6'^o« the Human Eye. 



