KNOT-GKASS. 



Polygonum aviculare. Nat. Ord., 

 Polygonacece. 



OME of our readers may well 

 be excused if they imagine 

 that a mistake has been made 

 in describing the plant figured 

 before us, for whatever else it 

 may be, it cannot certainly be 

 considered a grass : it is, in 

 fact, not grass, if the dignity 

 of our subject will allow of 

 such verbal trifling. How- 

 ever, the plant really bears the 

 name we have ascribed to it ; 

 and the explanation of the 

 anomaly may be found in the 

 fact that the wisdom of our 

 ancestors manifested itself, amongst other 

 ways, in calling many plants, such as 

 the present and the clover, grasses, if they were eaten 

 by cattle, or could be used as fodder-plants, though they 

 might bear no similitude to the true grasses, and would have 

 no claim in any way really to rank amongst them. 



The knot-grass is one of our most common plants, es- 

 pecially on a sandy or gravelly soil ; we find it on banks, by the 

 roadside, in corn-fields, and in fact almost everywhere. Cattle 

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