Grass 
But the best way is to bring a few different sorts of 
grasses into the house and leave them with their stalks 
in water. They are soon covered with pollen, and one 
can see the neat little contrivances to insure crossing 
and also distinguish the colours of the grass flowers. 
These colours are far too delicate to appreciate when 
one is simply walking beside a hayfield. When seen 
close at hand, one is astonished at the variety of the 
tints of pink, silvery green, browns, and purples. The 
bright yellow pollen and fresh green of the leaves set 
them off artistically. 
The pure-white, feathery stigmas project also out of 
the covering glumes, and are well arranged to intercept 
the pollen. It is not generally known that insects do 
visit the flowers of some grasses, and especially sweet 
vernal, so that these colours are not altogether wasted. 
The exquisite engineering of a fine grown flowering 
stalk of even the little Poa annua can only be appreci- 
ated by closely observing it. All ordinary grass haulms 
are excessively strong, though very thin, and the graceful 
way in which the relatively heavy spikelets are hung on 
their slender stalks is most remarkable. In a strong 
wind they are always in motion, bending and waving 
about ; each spikelet, with its small conical base, swings 
into the direction of the wind and hovers about in it. 
The stems of grasses are hollow, and the mechanical 
tissue is arranged in a ring near the outer circumference. 
Their strength is enormous if one remembers the very 
narrow diameter and the height of the columns, with the 
weights of fluttering leaves and heavy little spikelets. 
Over-fed and pampered grasses such as our corn 
and wheat are often beaten to the ground by heavy 
rain or hail, but the grass is prepared even for such 
accidents as these. The base of the lower leaf-sheaths 
is thick and swollen where it joins the stem. When 
the grass stem lies upon the ground, the attraction of 
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