GRASSES. 23 
Stoke Park, which was long the seat of the Penn 
family of Pennsylvania celebrity. 
These plants show to much better advantage when 
grown separately, as the long leaves, of which there 
is a great profusion, hang in thick tufts on every 
side. From the centre of these, the tall straight 
stems rise several feet above the mass of foliage, and 
are crowned with large plume-like heads of silvery- 
white flowers. Some of these separate plants have 
attained the height of fourteen feet, with a diameter 
of about eighteen feet; and occasionally they have 
been seen with as many as fifty heads of flowers. 
How beautifully does this majestic species com- 
pare with some of the humble little varieties which 
are scattered over our meadows! and yet, while God 
hath given extraordinary grace and beauty to one, 
he has also endowed the others with qualities which 
render them none the less curious, and far more use- 
ful. How wonderfully are they adapted to the various 
uses assigned them! If animals were allowed to feed 
upon the foliage of the Pampas Grass, its beauty 
would be marred, and the life of the plant endan- 
gered; but not so with the meadow-grass; the more 
its leaves are cropped, the wider spreads the plant; 
the more it is trampled upon, the thicker and softer 
it grows; and so far from being killed by the frosts 
of winter, it seems only to gather more life from re- 
pose, and upon the return of spring it again shoots 
forth with renewed freshness and vigor. 
