PREFACE 



r I "HE word grasses is used in this book in its strictest sense and 

 -*■ not as a farmer would use it as including the clovers and other 

 forage plants, nor in its original meaning of common herbage 

 as in the Bible ; and consequently several grasses, popularly 

 so called, do not appear herein as they do not belong to the 

 Graminese. The order, in which all the true grasses are grouped, 

 contains about 3,600 species, and of these we deal with the 

 hundred or so said to be native to our islands for the usual reason 

 that the dates of their introduction are unknown. Some may 

 have arrived during the historic period, some may have 

 originated here, but none are confined to our area ; in which 

 there is nothing remarkable considering the ease and frequency 

 with which grass seeds are distributed. 



For its food plants no botanical order is of greater interest 

 nor has any been more written about, some of the books being 

 really wonderful for the labour they involved. Among the 

 many, for instance, to which I have been indebted in the 

 verification of the materials of this is Hanham's, which is 

 illustrated by actual specimens of the plants, and the author 

 naively apologises for the delay in its production on account 

 of the difficulty in selecting 60,000 suitable examples from the 

 mass of his collection ! Only those who have had to deal with 



