COLORLESS FLOWERS. 



Now is the high-tide of the year — 



Every clod feels a stir of might, 



An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 

 And, groping blindly above it for light, 

 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 



— Lowell. 



Few of the people who like to watch the man race, and has not a poisonous mem- 

 wind rippling over the summer meadows ber except the darnel, the historic tare of 

 know what surprises await them in the the Bible. 



colorless grass flowers which are often We learn from fossil grasses, mere 



more interesting than their bright neigh- fragments of seeds and leaves preserved 



bors. in peat that this family was widespread 



Pick one of the feathery tops of the in the Tertiary period. The earliest men- 

 spear grass (Poa pratensis) and note tion of grass is made by an ancient Hin- 

 how the branching bouquet is arranged doo poet, who sings of the grass blades' 

 in little clusters of flowerets. These can wind blown seeds, "as, large as earth, as 

 easily be seen with the naked eye for rich as heaven." The beasts and the 

 millions of them open wide every dewy birds help in the distribution of the seeds, 

 morning, and disclose three delicate but the wind plays an important part, 

 stamens poised on gossamer thread like In the beard grass the flowerets are 

 filaments. The two feathery stigmas in plumed and when dry they are scattered 

 the heart of the grass blossom remind us by the breeze and the seeds are pointed 

 of a pair of beautiful little dust brushes, so that they can easily work their way 

 In fact, it is their mission to catch the pol- into sandy soil. 



len from the passing breeze and in a few There are many vagrants among the 



days you will find each wheat like grain grasses brought to us through commer- 



has grown plump in the pollen laden cial intercourse and colonization. In the 



wind, for the wind and the water are the United States we have many climates and 



grasses' couriers. But sometimes the kinds of soil and more grasses adapted 



breeze brings an enemy, thousands of to the different parts of our great coun- 



spores from a minute fungus, which try will yet be introduced into agriculture, 



makes the rusty places on the wheat and In Holland the very existence of the 



the great smutty spots on the ears of land depends on the foothold of the 



corn. grasses. 



The grass flowers are colorless, odor- There is no grass sowing recorded up 



less and make no nectar for they do not to the time of the' Pilgrims' landing, 



care to attract insects, they even pro- When the British soldiers returned to 



tect themselves against their visitation by England, after the Revolutionary war, 



sharp barbed points. Butterflies are they told how the colonists raised timothy 



sometimes seen hovering near for they from seed. Now we find much beauty 



like to sip the sweet juices of a few of in well kept fields and lawns, and call no 



our grasses. landscape perfect without the pleasant 



In a popular sense, the order forgets green. Ruskin says : "Think of it well 



the true representatives, corn, sugar- whether of all the flowers that bloom 



cane, rice and wheat, and includes the there be any by man so deeply loved, by 



beautiful sedges, which fringe our brook- God so highly graced as that narrow 



sides. It is well to get acquainted with a point of green." 



family of plants that feeds half the hu- W. C. Knowles. 



85 



