SEDGE AND WOOD RUSH, 13 



notice of any save a botanical eye. Grass, 

 most people would call them ; and indeed 

 their leaves are grassy - looking blades 

 enough ; but a single close glance at their 

 reedy stems and clustered flower-heads would 

 suggest even to the unpractised observer that 

 their stalks and blossoms differed widely 

 from the little scaly panicles of the true 

 grasses. 



To my thinking, there are few plants so 

 pretty as all these small insignificant-looking 

 unconsidered weeds, whose flowers need to 

 be examined somewhat minutely before we 

 can fully appreciate the real beauty of their 

 form and arrangement. Anybody can see 

 and admire at once a foxglove or an orchid, 

 but not everybody can see and admire at 

 once the delicate gracefulness of spurges and 

 quakegrasses, of little waving sedges and 

 tufted woodrushes. One feels that the beauty 

 of the larger blossoms is something flaunting 

 and meretricious an Aphrodite Demosia 

 tricked out in gaudy colours to please the 



