STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



and clothing. Were it not going beyond the bounds of my 

 subject, I might plead earnestly in behalf of my destitute 

 and too much neglected Indian sisters and dwell upon 

 their wants and trials; but this theme would lead me too 

 far away from my subject. The Indian Grass, so called, 

 Hierochloa borealis (Boem. & Sch.), is little known in its 

 native state, as it is only the Indians themselves who know 

 where to seek for it. This is among lonely lakes and forest 

 haunts. The soil where it grows is in low sandy flats, especi- 

 ally on shores where the soil is composed of disintegrated, 

 friable rocks, reduced to gritty, coarse sand, where it can 

 push out its slender white running roots most freely; and 

 there it sends up, early in May, its culms and light panicles 

 of shining flowers. The glossy straw-colored plumes and 

 purple anthers make this grass a very lovely object. The 

 leaves, too, are of a shining bright full green. It is the 

 earliest of any of the grasses to push up its pointed blades 

 above the ground ; and, so far as my knowledge of the plant 

 goes, for I have had it in my garden for many, many years, 

 it is the earliest to blossom. Only when dried, or rather 

 withered, does it give out its sweet scent, which it retains 

 for years. 



I have braided the long ribbon-like leaves and made 

 dinner-mats of them, and also chains tied with colored 

 ribbon, after the Indian fashion, and sent them to friends 

 in the Old Country to lay like lavender in their drawers. 

 One thing I must observe of the Indian Sweet Grass, 

 although it grows readily, and flourishes in any odd corner 

 of the garden in which you plant it, it rarely puts forth a 

 flowering stem; nor can I account for this, unless it may be 

 the absence of some specialty in the native soil that is lack- 

 ing, and for the need of which it may grow luxuriantly as 

 to leaf but bring no fruit to perfection. 



Among the common wild grasses, we have many kinds, 



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