A Thousand- Mile JValk 
nificent assemblage of tall grasses, their splen- 
did panicles waving grandly in the warm wind, 
and making low tuneful changes in the glis- 
tening light that is flashed from their bent 
stems. 
Not a pine, not a palm, in all this garden 
excels these stately grass plants in beauty of 
wind-waving gestures. Here are panicles that 
are one mass of refined purple ; others that have 
flowers as yellow as ripe oranges, and stems pol- 
ished and shining like steel wire. Some of the 
species are grouped in groves and thickets like 
trees, while others may be seen waving without 
any companions in sight. Some of them have 
wide-branching panicles like Kentucky oaks, 
others with a few tassels of spikelets drooping 
from a tall, leafless stem. But all of them are 
beautiful beyond the reach of language. I re- 
joice that God has “so clothed the grass of the 
field.” How strangely we are blinded to beauty 
and color, form and motion, by comparative 
size! For example, we measure grasses by our 
own stature and by the height and bulkiness 
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