160 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
grass-stalk pass harmlessly over the long, narrow 
leaves, which have taken the form of pennants to 
meet a like necessity. For both grass-blade and 
yacht-pennant must expose the largest possible 
area to the light, and yet present no broad sur- 
face to be torn by winds. 
These narrow leaves are born one by one along 
the hollow stem which botanists call a haulm. 
They are traversed by straight veins, which run 
lengthwise, almost parallel to one another. At the 
point where the leaf or ‘‘ blade’’ bends away from 
its sheathing-base there is a little whitish, semi- 
transparent scale—the ligule or ‘‘ shoe-latchet’”’ 
(Fig. 39). 
While ‘‘a grass” is speedily recognized by the 
merest tyro, the trained botanist is sometimes puz- 
zled in the effort to identify his particular grass, 
and to differentiate it from near relations, which 
resemble it as confusingly as Dromio of Ephesus 
resembled Dromio of Syracuse. Under such cir- 
cumstances the ligule sometimes gives the clue, 
for in one species it may be chopped off abrupt- 
ly, in another drawn out into a delicate point, 
and in a third cut into a fringe. 
Its purpose in the plant’s domestic economy is 
not evident. 
