88 USES 
woodruff, the Tonquin bean and melitot; it greatly improves the 
flavour of hay. The leaves and roots cf some grasses are used 
medicinally by the native Indian doctors ; an infusion of the leaves 
of Andropogon citratus is used as a stomachic and diaphoretic ; 
an infusion of the roots of A. murtcatus is a gentle stimulant and 
febrifuge, and the powdered roots are applied externally, with milk, 
in skin eruptions, etc. A cooling drink is made from the rhizomes 
of Cynodon dactylon. Tabasheer, a silicious crystalline substance 
often found in the cavity of the culms of bamboos, is used in native 
Indian practice as a drug for many ailments, although it is doubt- 
ful whether it possesses all the medicinal properties ascribed to it ; 
its chief use is as a stimulant and aphrodisiac. Ergot is a micro- 
scopic fungus (Claviceps purpurea) which attacks the fruit of 
grasses ; the hyphze form a purple spur-like body, ? inch long. 
Rye is a common host of this parasite, and ergot of rye is a 
valuable medicine in obstetrics. The spurs of ergot are highly 
poisonous, and where rye is largely used as a breadstuff, they 
sometimes cause terrible gangrenous disease. The only grass 
that appears to be poisonous is Lolzum Llemulentum, supposed to 
be the tares of Scripture : the deleterious property is in the grain. 
Grasses subserve some useful offices in nature. The maritime 
species with subterranean stolons are invaluable for binding loose 
sand, and cause the formation of sand hillocks. But for Ammo- 
phila arundinacea, Agropyrum junceum and Elymus arenarius, the 
sea would make serious inroads upon many parts of our coast. In 
the reign of Elizabeth an Act of Parliament was passed to protect 
Ammophila arundinacea, then largely used for basket-work and 
matting. This grass and Elymus arenarius are cultivated and 
vigilantly guarded on the Dutch coast. Another important economy 
of grasses is their action in purifying the atmosphere; every blade 
of grass is a laboratory in which the carbonic acid gas of the 
atmosphere, in excess poisonous to animal life, is split into its 
elements, the carbon being retained for the use of the plant and 
the oxygen liberated. The utility of grasses in this way is of 
course most obvious in and around centres of population. Every 
little grass-plot in town gardens helps to revitalize the vitiated air. 
Chief among the ornamental uses of grasses is “the covering of 
the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those 
soft and countless and peaceful spears . . . the life of sunlight 
upon the world, falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft and 
blue shadows, where else it would have struck upon the dark mould 
of scorching dust. Pastures beside the pacing brooks; soft banks 
and knolls of lowly hills ; thymy slopes of down, overlooked by the 
blue line of lifted sea; crisp lawns, all dim with early dew or smooth 
in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and 
softening in their fall the sound of happy voices.” Thanks to 
our cool-temperate and insular climate, English lawns are unsur- 
passed, and rarely equalled, in their perennial verdure, by those of 
any other country. Cyzosurus cristatus, Festuca duriuscula, and 
