Grasses 157 



fertilized. The cone-bearing trees have blossoms 

 which still adhere to these most ancient of all 

 floral customs. 



Later came the insect-fertilized flowers, with 

 pretty corollas developed especiaUy to charm their 

 winged friends. 



The grasses, in their present form, seem the 

 latest flowers of all. They have reached a third 

 condition, and after acquiring calyx and corolla 

 to please insects, have abandoned these little mes- 

 sengers, or been abandoned by them, and have 

 reverted to the primitive ancestral habit of depend- 

 ence upon the wind. 



Though the wind and the grasses take opposite 

 sides in the contest between earth and sea, they are, 

 on the whole, close friends. For the wind is not 

 only the agent for the cross-fertilization of the 

 grasses. He is the master-artificer who has 

 moulded and fashioned them in every part, from 

 root to flower. 



If we pick a spear of "red-top" we find that its 

 stem is hollow. The hollow stems of the grasses, 

 like those of the dandelion, have the utmost 

 strength obtainable with economy of material, and 

 both strength and economy are needed in the 

 structure of a stalk which must uphold, in the 



