Of Grasses 



of many spring grasses depend for colour upon their lightly poised 

 anthers of lavender and gold. Sweet Vernal-grass, Orchard Grass, 

 and June Grass, so characteristic of spring, are succeeded by 

 spreading panicles of Hair-grass, bayonet-like spikes of Timothy, 

 and the richly coloured Red-top whose blossoms burn with mid- 

 summer's warmth. September has still new grasses to offer, and 

 in this month the Beard-grasses are conspicuous, as their stiff 

 stems at last attain a growth that will enable them to withstand 

 snow and frost. In many localities from fifty to one hundred dif- 

 ferent grasses may be gathered, and, although, unlike the lilies, 

 they do not flaunt their colours garishly, yet in rose and lavender, 

 in purple and an infinite scale of green they rest and charm the 

 eye with their beauty from April to October, when frosts bring to 

 them new hues of brown and yellow in which they clothe the earth 

 until green blades again push through spring turf. 



Our waysides are the accepted gardens of many plants which, 

 having followed the path of mankind through the New World, 

 take the highways of civilization for their own, and find abundant 

 means for transportation as seed is fastened on passers-by, or 

 carried by the wind along smooth pathways. Few are the grasses 

 that cannot be found in these wayside gardens as the roads wind 

 through fertile country, from uplands to rich meadows, or pass 

 sandy shores, where in a variety of soils the different grasses bloom 

 and add a mass of verdure to the border of the way. Throughout 

 the season these common gardens of the wayside hold a constantly 

 changing procession of grasses; a procession which begins with 

 Low Spear-grass and Sweet Vernal-grass in April, and ends in 

 October with the Dropseed-grasses and the Beard-grasses, al- 

 though even in winter the species that remain standing may still 

 be recognized. 



Rarer flowers must be sought in deep woods and in hidden 

 places in the swamps, but the cosmopolitan grasses are fitted to 

 take up the struggle for existence wherever the seed chances to 

 fall. Dean Herbert rightly says that "plants do not grow where 

 they like best but where other plants will let them." By way- 

 sides we may see this struggle in its intensity as a dozen species 

 strive for the same plot of ground and grow in tangles that in- 

 clude low cinquefoil and tall briars. The strife is always most 

 intense between individuals of the same species, and here the 

 grasses grow in profusion, occupying each inch of space, pushing 



