ACCORDING TO SEASON 



passed in this meadow. The flowers, nearly all 

 of them, are old friends. The ferns, too, are not 

 strangers. But as to the names and habits of 

 these beautiful, grass-like, sedge-like, rush-like 

 strangers things that wave and float and sway above the 

 flowers, above the ferns, I was almost entirely at 

 sea. For years I had meant to make a study of 

 the grasses and sedges, but the empty days they 

 were designed to fill slipped farther and farther 

 into the future, and here I was among a host of 

 lovely, tantalizing creatures who were quite name- 

 less. I hurried home from my first visit to the 

 meadow with the determination to learn from 

 some book at least the names of the strangers. 

 With the happy confidence of ignorance, I felt 

 assured that by another day I should feel more at 

 home among them. 



)But my confidence was premature. The flower- 

 lover who seeks to know as well as to love, finds 

 himself somewhat daunted on his first introduc- 

 tion to " coherent " calyxes, " superior " ovaries, 

 " deciduous " sepals, and " parietal " placentae. 

 Despair! \ But what are these to "imbricated two-ranked 

 glumes," with their " palets" and " lodicules," 

 their " caryopses M and " ligules " ? It is bad 

 enough to have the glumes "imbricated," but 



i 



when they become "excurrent" or " charta- 

 ceous" or " ventricose-scarious-margined " at the 



