NATURAL THJKOLOGY. 383 



clothes the earth — with these she sustains its in- 

 habitants. Cattle feed upon their leaves — birds 

 upon their smaller seeds — men upon the larger; 

 for few readers need be told that the plants which 

 produce our bread-corn belong to this class. In 

 those tribes which are more generally considered 

 as grasses, their extraordinary means and powers 

 of preservation and increase, their hardiness, their 

 almost unconquerable disposition to spread, their 

 faculties of reviviscence, coincide with the inten- 

 tion of Nature concerning them. They thrive 

 under a treatment by which other plants are de- 

 stroyed. The more their leaves are consumed, 

 the more their roots increase. The more thev 

 are trampled upon, the thicker they grow. Many 

 of the seemingly dry and dead leaves of grasses 

 revive, and renew their verdure in the spring.'*^^ 

 In lofty mountains, where the summer heats are 

 not sufficient to ripen the seeds, grasses abound 

 which are viviparous, and consequently able to 

 propagate themselves without seed. It is an ob- 

 servation likewise which has often been made, 

 that herbivorous animals attach themselves to the 

 leaves of grasses, and if at liberty in their pastures 

 to range and choose, leave untouched the straws 

 which support the flowers.* 



J<^ Here, to be correct, we ahould read " Many grasses whose 

 leaves are so dry and withered that the plants appear dead, revive 

 and renew their existence in the spring by pusliino- forth new 

 leaves from the bosom of the former ones." 



+ Withering, Bot. Arr. vol. i. p. 28, ed. 2nd. 



