103 
G RA S S. 
I love to muse on meadows newly mown, 
Where withering Grass perfumes the sultry air, 
Where bees search round, with sad unwearied drone, 
In vain, for flowers that bloomed but newly tbere. 
Claee. 
How few are there who think a blade of Grass worthy 
their attention ; yet they who examine the structure of 
Grasses perceive how admirahly their several parts are 
adapted to the functions appointed them. « They are,” 
says Paley, “ nature’s care,” for with these she clothes 
the earth. Their extraordinary means and powers of 
préservation and increase, their hardiness, their almost 
unconquerahle disposition to spread, their faculties of 
reviviscence, coincide with the intention of nature con- 
cerning them. They thrive under a treatment by which 
other plants are destroyed. The more their leaves are 
consumed the more their roots increase. The more 
they are trampled upon, the thicker they grow.” * In 
tropical countries Grasses are far more gigantic than in 
* Lindley’s Ladies’ Botany. 
