GRASSKS OF MAINE. 5 



90 species are known. In Massachusetts, 130. In Illinois, 

 105 native species. In Nebraska, 143. There is not a shadow 

 of doubt that a Natural History or Geological Survey of Maine 

 would discover 75 new species of native grasses. 



Of the 125 known species in Maine, not more than 30 have 

 been tamed and found to be friendly, and not over 50 are 

 known to be of any agricultural value ; and even of the 30, 

 not one farmer in a thousand can correctly name a "baker's 

 dozen" of them. 



The grasses belong to the family of flowering plants, and 

 is one of the sixteen natural groups of plants, cultivated to 

 supply man and his domestic animals. While they number 

 from 4,000 to 6,000 species, and from their "centres of 

 creation" have been distributed over the surface of the earth, 

 not one of them is remarkable for brilliant, aromatic, or 

 showy flowers ; yet, these often play an important part in 

 determining the species, as well as the sex of the grasses. 

 The flowers are generally perfect or monjiecius — that is, in 

 one house — the essential or fertilizing organs being in the 

 same flower or blossom, or in difierent blossoms on the same 

 plant. Bufialo grass (^Buchloe dactyloides) is the only known 

 species in which the staminate or sterile, (male) and the 

 pistilate or fertile (female) flower grow on distinct plants, as 

 they do in the willow. It is worthy of note, that the mor- 

 phology of the flowers of the natural grasses, is quite distinct 

 from that of any other plant, and while the blossoms are 

 neither large nor showy, 



" Not one of Flora's brilliant race 

 ^ A form more pj^rfoet can display. 



Art could not feign more simple grace, 

 Xor nature take a line away." 



The natural grasses belong (when the name is taken from 

 the stem) to a class known as endogens or "inside growers." 

 The growth from the inside pushes outward ; there is no 

 distinct bark and no laj'^ers or wood rings, but the threads of 

 wood are scattered throughout the stem or spire, without any 

 particular order. When the name is taken from the leaf 



