PREFACE 
Grasses are in three respects a remarkable family: they 
possess many structural peculiarities which sharply define 
them from all other kinds of plants; they are so abundant 
and widely diffused as to constitute the dominant feature of 
the landscape, not only in our own, but in most other coun- 
tries ; and lastly, no other Order can at all compare with the 
Gramineze in the variety and magnitude of their uses. 
Yet the study of grasses, so far from being popular, is 
shunned by many botanists in the belief that it is beset with 
unusual difficulties ; farmers and graziers, to whom the cereal 
and forage grasses are all in all, have rarely a scientific 
acquaintance with them; while those observers of Nature, not 
particularly interested in either botany or agriculture, are 
hardly able to recognize two or three among the many species 
which everywhere abound. 
This little handbook is an endeavour to popularize the 
study of grasses ; the peculiarities of the structure of grasses, 
and the terms employed in describing these plants, are care- 
fully explained ; the chapter descriptive of the British species 
and their habitats is arranged with especial regard to con- 
venience in field-work; and some definite information is 
given regarding the geographical distribution of grasses and 
their vast economic importance. 
