Grass 
wise ridges, and of delicate-walled collapsible cells in 
the grooves. In dry weather these latter sink or collapse, 
and the leaf is rolled or wrapped round into an almost 
woody cylinder which no ordinary animal could pos- 
sibly desire to eat. 
So it is that in the dry climate of the Argentine, in 
spite of bitter winds and blazing sunshine, a rolling 
waving sea of grasses covers the whole country as far as 
the indistinct and misty horizon. Monotonous as such 
steppes may be, they havea charm of their own, varying 
with the changing of the seasons. In early spring it is 
all a bright bluey green ; later, as the sun hardens and 
dries the leaves, it turns to a brownish or yellowish 
green, but when the white flowers are fully out it is a 
rolling waving sea of shining silver. 
The flowers of grasses are always considered difficult 
to examine, and they are not favourites for young and 
untried botanists, for they are certainly very dry, very 
minute, and difficult to see. 
Each floret, with usually three stamens, an ovary 
with white and feathery stigmas, and two small scales 
(lodicules) is packed away between two neatly fitted 
bracts. The outer of these (flowering glume) is more 
or less boat-shaped, and the other, which is flat, fits 
into the boat, being, as one might say, like its deck. 
At the right moment (about eight in the morning for 
Poa annua’) the two small scales or lodicules swell by 
absorption of water. This forces up the “deck,” and 
the three stamens begin to grow very rapidly. In from 
ten minutes to half-an-hour they will elongate to about 
four or five times their own length, and hang out over 
the edge of the flowering glume. Sometimes one can 
make the spiketets open and flower simply by stroking 
them lightly between the fingers or by shaking the stalk. 
One observer saw a whole field of rye suddenly blossom 
when a gentle breeze began to blow across its surface. 
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