GRASSES. AND SEDGES 
(SUB-CLASS II. GLUMACEZ:.) 
GRASSES constitute an important part of the vegetation of most temperate 
countries, forming large masses of verdure on plains and hill-sides, and giving 
to the landscape that hue on which the-eye can longest gaze untired, fringing 
the blue streams or crystal rills with their graceful leaves and flowers; or 
planted by the hand of man, in fields, ripening gradually from the delicate 
and tender blade of the spring cornfields into the rich brown of the full ear, 
which is to furnish our food. The Cereals, or corn grasses, are not natives 
of Britain ; and of the large number of grasses which form the herbage of 
our fields, not more than twenty are fitted for the food of cattle. Many 
grasses grow even in water; some in running streams, others where the 
water is still. Some are peculiar to the mountains, others to the woodland : 
some to the sandy fields or shores, but not one will grow in the sea. Several 
grasses and sedges are invaluable, as, by the interlacing of their roots, they 
fix the ever-shifting sands ; and without their aid we should often be over- 
whelmed by torrents of sand almost as fearful as those which appal the 
traveller in the desert. In other places grasses grow on upland and hilly 
ground, restraining there the falling of the loose soil, while the widespread 
down, the chalky cliffs, and the wall top are made green by their presence. 
Besides their individual uses, they, in their mass, influence the healthy con- 
dition of the surrounding neighbourhood, for wherever this verdant covering 
of the earth is found it materially affects the atmosphere, especially with 
regard to the quantity of moisture; while the air which sweeps over the 
grass, laden with all the deleterious gases borne away from the crowded city, 
sweeps back again to the mass of mankind dwelling there, charged with a 
fresh supply of oxygen breathed forth from blades of grass and from leafy 
boughs, and replaces that which is vitiated by the respiration of man and 
animals. 
Perhaps the season when the sight of the green meadows most delights 
us is early spring. How beautiful are they, as the sunlight comes down 
upon their gleaming blades, and the blue heavens are hanging over them! 
Every day the grass seems to become taller, and thicker, and greener. 
