l] ORIGIN OF THE WORD GRASS 3 



small modicum of truth in such sayings as " All flesh is 

 grass," and that the man who can make two blades of 

 grass grow where one grew before deserves well of his 

 country, obtains a larger significance when it is realised 

 that the only real gain of wealth is that represented by 

 the storage of energy from without which comes to us by 

 the action of green leaves waving in the sunshine. 



The true Grasses, comprising the Natural Order 

 Graminaceae — also written Graminese — are often popularly 

 confounded with other herbs which possess narrow green 

 ribbon-like leaves, or even with plants of very different 

 aspects — e.g. Cotton-grass (Eriophorum) and other Sedges, 

 and the names Rib-grass (Plantago), Knot-grass (Poly- 

 gonum), Scorpion-grass {Myosotis) and Sea-grass (Zostera), 

 as well as the general usage of the word grass to signify 

 all kinds of leguminous and other hay-plants in agri- 

 culture, point to the wider use of the word in former 

 times. This has been explained by the use of the words 

 gaers, gres, gyrs, and grass in the old herbals to indicate 

 any kind of small herbage. 



In view of the importance of our British grasses in 

 agriculture, I have here put together some results of 

 observation and reading in the hope that they may aid 

 students in recognising easily our ordinary agricultural 

 and wild grasses. During several years of work in the 

 fields, principally directed at first to the study of the 

 parasitic fungi on grasses, and subsequently to that of the 

 importance of grasses in forestry and agriculture, and to 

 the variations they exhibit, the need of some guide to 

 the identification of a grass at any time of the year, 



1—2 



