A USEFUL FAMILY. 1 25 



time of inflorescence. After flowering there occur those 

 changes in color which result in the yellows and purples 

 and golden browns that give the landscape in late summer 

 and in early fall its peculiar beauty. 



There is one trait of the grass family which causes it to 

 be a peculiarly favorable subject for study both by the bot- 

 anist and the artist throughout the season. This is the 

 prolongation of the period of inflorescence. Though the 

 individual plant is in flower but a short time, usually from 

 one to three days, differences of environment may make a 

 difference of several weeks in the time of flowering of plants 

 belonging to the same species. Moreover, the normal flow- 

 ering time of the various species extends over a period of 

 not less than six months. With us the earliest species are 

 in flower by the last of April and some of the latest species 

 have not finished blossoming until the last of October. I 

 am speaking only of indigenous or thoroughly wild grasses 

 whose times and seasons are not regulated by the will of 

 man. In the landscape, of course, the cultivated grasses 

 must be reckoned as factors. 



lyate in April, provided the kindly sun has by that time 

 vanquished the snow, the first grass in flower may be found 

 springing up about the edges of lawns and strips of turf in 

 cities and villages. This is the annual spear-grass, Poa 

 annua, an introduced species. The basal leaves form a 

 large part of the greenery in our lawns and cannot of them- 

 selves be distinguished |rom those of some other species. 

 A few plants escape the lawn mower and succeed in send- 

 ing up, besides leaves, a stem, called in the grass family a 

 culm. On this is borne the inflorescence, an open panicle 

 on the branches of which are the flowers, collected together 

 in little flattened bunches called spikelets. The flowers 

 will scarcely be recognizable as such unless the observer is 

 fortunate enough to be in the nick of time, when the three 

 anthers and the two feathery stigmas have pushed aparl 



