Grasses 175 



But these are naturalized foreigners. A great gap 

 separates them from the tallest native grasses, the 

 Indian corn, the wild rice, and the reeds (Fig. 45). 



Few popular names are more loosely used than 

 this term "reed." It is applied to large grasses 

 of several species and to the cat-tail flags which are 

 not grasses at all. But the true reed of classic 

 story and of modern verse is the phragmites corn- 

 munis y whose spears of bloom, sometimes twelve 

 feet tall, are conspicuous objects in latter summer, 

 on the edges of ponds and streams. The plant 

 looks, from a distance, like broom-corn. 



Its many broad leaves and feathery head of 

 blossom are swayed by the faintest breath, so that 

 "there are not many things in Nature," says Ste- 

 venson, "more striking to man's eye than the 

 shivering of the reeds. It is such an eloquent 

 pantomime of terror; and to see such a number of 

 terrified creatures in every nook along the shore is 

 enough to infect a silly human with alarm." 



Their dumb fear was noticed by the people of 

 the classic world, who accounted for it by a legend. 



There was a certain nymph called Syrinx, who 

 was much beloved by the satyrs and the spirits of 

 the wood. 



She would have none of them, for she was a 



