one thing, the small slim green herb which The Clans 

 carpets the familiar earth. But there are of the 

 many grasses, from the smooth close-set herb 

 of our lawns or the sheep -nibbled downy 

 greenness of mountain-pastures, to the forest- 

 like groves which sway in the torrid winds of 

 the south. Of these alone much might be 

 written. I prefer, however, that name I have 

 placed at the head of this article — taken, if I 

 remember rightly, from a poem by the Gaelic 

 mountain-poet, Duncan Ban Macintyre — and 

 used in the sense of the original. In this 

 sense, the Clans of the Grass are not only the 

 grasses of the pasture, the sand-dune, the 

 windy down, not only the sorrel-red meadow- 

 grass or the delicate quaking-grass, but all the 

 humbler greengrowth which covers the face 

 of the earth. In this company are the bee- 

 loved clover, the trailing vetch, the yellow-sea 

 clover and the sea-pink ; the vast tribe of the 

 charlock or wild mustard which on showery 

 days sometimes lights up field or hill-meadow 

 with yellow flame so translucent that one 

 thinks a sudden radiant sunflood burns and 

 abides there. In it too are all the slim peoples 

 of the reed and rush, by streams and pools and 

 lochans : of the yellow iris by the sea-loch and 

 the tall flag by the mountain-tarn : the grey 

 thistle, the sweet-gale, and all the tribe of the 



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