INDIAN GRASS.* 



This is one of the most remarkable of our native 

 grasses, both as respects its appearance and habits as 

 well as the use the Indian women make of it in the 

 manufacture of all sorts of ornamental trifles and useful 

 articles. They weave its long, flexible shining dark 

 green leaves into baskets, mats, braids and many other 

 things. As I write I have before me a cup and saucer 

 neatly and skilfully woven together in one piece by the 

 dusky fingers of an Indian squaw. 



The Indian grass retains its color for a long time, and 

 its fine aromatic perfume, resembling the scent of vanilla, 

 remains for many years after it is cut and woven into 

 the various articles made from it. 



*The Indian Grass, commonly so-called, is the identical "Holy Grass" 

 of northern Europe. The botanical name Hierochloa is derived from the 

 Greek words meaning sacred and grass, the custom of strewing churches 

 and other sacred buildings with this fragrant plant giving it tbe name. It 

 "was only when reading Smiles' "Memoirs of Robert Dick" (long after the 

 above was written), and the account that industrious naturalist gives of 

 this plant, that I instantly recognized it as the same found in Ontario and 

 used by the Indian women in their work. 



