58 COLIN CLOUTS CALENDAR. 



XI. 



THE FLOWERING OF THE GRASSES. 



The big dry logs beside the path in Holme Bush Fields 

 make a pleasant seat in wet weather ; though why the 

 Squire has let them lie here so long it would be hard to 

 say ; for they are fine solid trunks of good timber, and 

 now they are beginning to rot on the under-side, and to 

 put forth beautiful patches of bright orange fungus at 

 the scars of the main branches. Around them, the grass 

 is growing tall and luxuriant, as it always does beside 

 fallen wood ; and most of the heads are now coming 

 into their first bloom, with the little quivering and 

 shivering stamens trembling like aspen leaves before the 

 faintest breath of wind. These smooth, round cylin- 

 drical mops, soft and hairy like a fox's brush, are the 

 meadow foxtails ; these slender waving panicles, much 

 branched and subdivided, with a faint purplish blush 

 upon their tiny flowers, are the common field-grass, the 

 most ordinary element of all our English pastures ; 

 these larger, broader, flatter, and more turgid heads, 

 fiercely bearded, and standing out square to the breeze, 

 are haulms of brome ; and these single stiff, lance-like 

 spikes, with dark-brown scales between the florets, are 

 sweet vernal grass, the plant that, a little later, imparts 



