238 TwENTY-FiEST Biennial Repobt 



by plants to man and beast, is it not a little surprising 

 that we; should know so little about them, that so few of 

 our people should have definite ideas as to what the grass 

 family means to mankind? 



Suppose we take a familiar grass and examine it 

 carefully to see how it differs from other plants. 



The common oats will serve as well as anything. 

 One of the first features to attract attention when we 

 compare this plant with a sunflower or petunia is that 

 its stem is jointed, and that it is, as in many species of 

 grasses, hollow. Here is a character by which the grasses 

 may be separated from the clovers, and most other 

 plants. The leaves of a grass, again,, are ribbon-like or 

 threadlike, and the veins are parallel, never netted, as 

 are those of a maple or clover leaf; and here we have 

 another character by which a grass may be recognized 

 and distinguished from most other flowering plants. The 

 flowers of grasses, to take another feature, are small and 

 not brightly colored. You have but to recall the timothy 

 tops and blue grass tops to get the idea. The flowers 

 have the necessary parts found in the rose and tulip, 

 but they are small, and are ordinarily concealed by the 

 small greenish chaff. Each timothy top and blue grass 

 top when examined with a magnifier is found to bear 

 large numbers of these small flowers hidden among the 

 chaffy protective envelopes, much as the com ear is 

 hidden by the husks. 



Now, the! showy flowers like those of clover are more 

 or less dependent on the insects for pollen, and if it is 

 not brought from other plants of the same sort, many of 

 them produce few or no seeds. In the case of the 

 grasses, we say they are wind poUenized, because the 

 pollen grains are carried by the wind and insects- have 

 little to do with it. This is why it is so difficult to keep 

 corn and other grasses pure. Pollen from different 

 varieties is widely scattered in the air, and hence we 

 often find red or yellow grains mixed with the white 

 grains of a white variety. So, again, in the case of blue 

 grass it is almost impossible to find fixed varieties be- 

 cause of the wide sowing of the pollen of these plants by 

 the wind. 



