BRITISH GRASSES- 



chapter i. 



INTEODUCTION. 



Of all the plants covering our hills and valleys, Grasses 

 are the most general and the most important. We 

 attach great and deserved importance to utility, and 

 seldom stint our meed of praise to beauty; yet, as we 

 pluck up the grassy weeds in our flower-beds, or sen- 

 tence the garden walk to a covering of salt to destroy 

 the young grass blades, how little we recognize how 

 beneficent and lordly a family we are making war with : 

 yet, as the term weed has been well defined as " a plant 

 growing where it is not wanted," the young grasses, so 

 valuable in the meadows or pasture, are deserving of 

 extermination when they intrude themselves into the 

 parterre. 



Linnseus has computed .grasses to constitute a sixth 

 part of all the vegetables of the glo~be. They prevail 

 especially in open situations, and spread themselves by 



