FAMILIAR GRASSES AND THEIR FLOWERS 



635 



Nowhere else will one get a more strik- 

 ing picture of why botany seems a hard 

 study to the layman than in the names of 

 the different parts of a stalk of corn. 

 The tassels are the stamens, the ear is a 

 "spike borne in the axils of the leaves," 

 and the grains are "the fertile flowers." 

 The corncob is a "thickened rachis." The 

 chaff covering the cob is "the flowering 

 scale and palet," and the silk forms "the 

 elongated pistils of the flower." 



One of the most interesting of all the 

 wars that Nature stages is the struggle 

 between the grasses and the trees. Go 

 where the forest and the prairie meet and 

 watch the efforts of the timber to drive 

 wedges into the grasses' lines ; and ob- 

 serve the counter-offensives of the 

 grasses in gaining footholds on the tree- 

 ward side of the No Man's Land of the 

 battle zone. 



Strategy and tactics alike enter into the 

 struggle. There is nothing of the bar- 

 barity of the frost and forest struggle, 

 for neither attempts to dislodge the other ; 

 each seeks only to outlast the other and to 

 prevent the other from bringing in rein- 

 forcements. 



UNDT^R THE EYE) OE THE MICROSCOPE 



Under the eye of the microscope one 

 may see something of the true glory of 

 the unpretentious grasses, and in the ac- 

 companying color series the power of our 

 eyes has been multiplied so that we may 

 discern something of the beauty that lies 

 hidden so deep that the cursory glance is 

 not privileged to behold. 



We are told a great deal about the 

 beautiful green of lawn and meadow, but 

 little is known by the layman of the gor- 



geous and often grotesque flowers, for 

 they can only be seen to advantage under 

 the microscope. 



The flowers of most of the smaller 

 grasses are perfect, and their component 

 parts are readily comparable to the larger 

 and better-known flowers. 



In grass flowers the petals and sepals 

 are replaced by glumes ; there are usu- 

 ally three anthers and an ovary or pistil 

 surmounted by one or two stigmas, these 

 latter often branched and feathery in 

 form. 



When seen under the microscope at 

 moderate enlargement and with reflected 

 lighting, the color effect and structure 

 suggest a delicate piece of beaded work 

 profusely jeweled and built into fantastic 

 forms and designs. 



From their extreme delicacy it follows 

 that the superficial parts of the flowers 

 are semi-transparent, the colors being 

 iridescent or those of one part glowing 

 faintly through the translucent cell walls 

 of the overlying parts. Words are in- 

 adequate to do justice to their beauty. 



In the smallest enlargements of the ac- 

 companying color series of illustrations, 

 one square inch becomes slightly more 

 than four and one-half square feet; in 

 the largest, we are able to look at the 

 grasses under a magnification which is 

 equal to stretching a square inch into 

 twenty and one-quarter square feet, or to 

 expanding one square yard into some- 

 thing more than half an acre. 



If one could see familiar objects on a 

 like scale of magnification, a normal man 

 would be half as high as the Washington 

 Monument and a mouse would become 

 almost as big as a horse. 



BARNYARD GRASS (Echinochloa crus- 

 galli) [Plate I] 



The familiar barnyard grass sometimes 

 known as cockspur grass is a strong annual, 

 growing from one to four feet tall, possessing 

 wide leaves, and having an affinity for moist, 

 rich soil. The flowers appear from August to 

 October. The plant flourishes throughout 

 North America except in the extreme north. 



TIMOTHY (Phleum pratense) [Plate II] 



There is no grass of the field more familiar 

 than the timothy, with its tall, bright green 

 stalk, its succulent blades, and its cattail head. 

 It is the most prized among the haying crops, 

 bringing a higher price per ton than any of the 

 other grasses. In good land, timothy often 

 grows to a height of five and six feet and its 



heads attain a length of from six to ten inches. 

 The average timothy head is, perhaps, four 

 inches and contains several hundred tiny 

 flowers. The pollen, dashed with lavender, 

 disperses with the slightest touch and is borne 

 on the wings of the wind on its mission of fer- 

 tilization. 



Timothy is a provident grass. During the 

 days of abundant moisture in the ground it 

 stores up nutriment in bulbous thickenings at 

 the base of the stems, which enables it to sur- 

 vive periods of drought better than the ma- 

 jority of its companions of the field. 



Timothy seed is one of the lightest of the 

 grass family, and main' a farmer allows acres 

 to pass the haying time in order that the seeds 

 may develop. Usually the timothy harvest 

 conies after wheat and rye are in the barn. 



