GRASSES AND SEDGES 125 
this latter danger the plant makes another provision. 
On the approach of damp the valves of the anther, 
feeling the damp, close up, and no more, for the time, 
falls into the spoons at the base. What is already there 
has to take its chance, but at least the risk is minimised, 
and the whole stock is not allowed to perish. 
If, as I hope, you may begin to collect, and wish to 
know what your grasses are, there are two books you will 
find useful. For a beginning, get one of the later editions 
of the Rev. C. A. Johns’ Flowers of the Field, with an 
Appendix on Grasses, and for a more elaborate work you 
may consult the eleventh volume of Sowerby’s Lnglish 
Botany, which is devoted entirely to this group. 
I will conclude this chapter with a brief des- 
cription of a very common, but most interesting 
plant, which has on the one hand certain affinities 
with the grasses, and on the other leads us up to 
the orchids and lilies, which are to form the 
subject of the next chapter. One of the first 
flowers that you come to recognise is the common 
Arum, either under that name, or as Cuckoo Pint, 
or as Lords-and-Ladies. By any hedgerow in the 
spring-time you may find the broad, glossy green 
leaves, sometimes spotted with purple, and in the 
centre the quaint spike of flowers, close wrapped 
in a green shroud at first, which soon unwinds, 
and exposes the dull purple or creamy club- 
shaped top, and the clustering rings of flowerets 
around the base of the pillar. Equally conspicuous 
when winter comes are the clusters of coral-red 
. ° SPADIX 
berries, raised up on the fleshy stalk from the or arvm. 
herbage of the hedge-bottom. These same berries, ”- Hairs. 
P a. Anthers. 
by-the-by, are held, and I believe truly, respon- sz, Stigmas. 
