GRASSES. 137 



species furnisli a good fibre for this purpose, but the grass which 

 has beeu used most largely in the manufacture of paper is the 

 Esparto grass of the Mediterl-anean region. The quantity of 

 this grass annually imported into England at present amounts to 

 over two hundred thousand tons, valued at three-quarters of a 

 million pounds sterling. 8ome grasses are used in the manufact- 

 ure of cordage, or hats, or of matting ; others make thatch ; 

 some are employed in medicine ; others yield perfumery. Among 

 the natural uses of grasses may be mentioned that of binding 

 drifting sands and the protection of our coasts and river banks 

 from the action of the tides or floods, and their use in protecting 

 the soils of our fields and meadows by the covering which their turf 

 affords. They extract from the earth and the air elements which 

 they transform into siibstances that serve as food, and in doing 

 this they help to purify the air we breathe. 



Contrary to the general idea, there exists among grasses a 

 remarkable diversity of form. So varied is this that botanists 

 have already defined nearly four thousand distinct species. This 

 diversity appears throughout all the organs of the grass. In 

 some the roots are simply fibrous, and the plants grow in tufts 

 or bunches, as Sheep's Fescue and Orchard grass ; others have 

 what we call creeping roots, and it is among these that we should 

 look for the best turf-forming species. Some have stems less 

 than an inch in height and appear like mosses covering the soil 

 and rocks ; others attain the height of our tallest forest trees. 

 Some have leaves as fine as the finest thread ; in others the 

 leaves are those of the ideal blade of grass, while others again 

 have leaves like those of palms, or leaves as short and as broad 

 and as round as those of the well-known smilax. To explain the 

 details and the varieties existing among the flowers of grasses 

 would be wearisome. That grasses have flowers is an idea rarely 

 entertained by any except botanists, and I have frequently heard 

 the remark, " I did not know that grasses had flowers." They 

 do, however, although their special characters may differ from 

 those of other plants ; and provision exists here, as it does 

 throughout nearly all the tribes of vegetation which bear flowers, 

 for securing cross-fertilization. The flowers of grasses are 

 inconspicuous and secrete no nectar. They are not, therefore, 

 attractive to insects, which play so important a part in the 

 process of cross-fertilization. The pollen of grass flowers is 



