STRENGTH AND GRACE OF GRASS 



melting away, leaving stretches of bare mud, scratched stones, 

 and polished rock, plants immediately begin to settle there. 

 A Swiss botanist watched the process during five or six years, 

 and describes how first the yellow Saxifrage {S. aizoides) 

 establishes itself. Next season Coltsfoot, willow-herb, Oxyria, 

 and two grasses had planted themselves. During the third 

 season another grass came in. By the fourth season. Fescues 

 and yarrow had appeared, and by the fifth season, five 

 grasses, clovers, and yarrow had formed a regular grassland 

 upon the new untouched soil.^ 



In such cases. Nature, who abhors bare ground, is 

 endeavouring to clothe it with useful vegetation. 



The fights which are going on are of the most ruthless 

 character. Many weeds are said to produce some 30,000 

 seeds in one year, and every plant which grows in a meadow 

 is scattering thousands of seeds. But of course the number 

 of plants remains much the same, so that 29,999 seeds are 

 wasted (or the seedlings choked out) for every one that 

 grows up ! 



It is probably because of this perpetual warfare that the 

 growth of the grasses is so vigorous, and their whole struc- 

 ture so perfectly adapted. If you watch a flowering grass, 

 you are sure to notice how narrow is its stem compared with 

 the height. A factory chimney only fifty-eight feet high 

 requires to be at least four feet broad at the base, yet a rye- 

 plant 1500 millimetres high may be only three millimetres 

 broad near the root. Man's handiwork, the chimney, is in 

 height seventeen times its diameter, but the height of the 

 grass is 500 times its diameter. 



The neatness of design, the graceful curves and perfect 

 balance in the little flowering branches at the top of a 

 ^ Coaz, Mittheilungen d. Naturf, Berne, 1886. 



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