Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/171

. 1, 1863.] size requires support—belong to this sedge family, as do also the lordly bullrushes, lifting their proud heads from the river’s depths, and the dark-tinted catkins called by the poets “Long Purples.” Their past history is more important than their present one; they supplied the paper of the Egyptians, the ark of Moses, and the boats of Abyssinia; now their qualties are chiefly celebrated by the Waterhen and Sedge Warbler, excepting when a tasteful hand groups them with flowers and grasses for the decoration of a sitting-room.

The Wood-sedge, with its delicate green leaves and loose pendulous catkins; the larger and still more drooping pond-haunter, the Cypérus-sedge, and the erect common sedge, are familiar examples of this widely-extended family; in all of these the female flowers occupy the lower catkins, and the male ones are placed on that at the summit.

The well-known family of the Cotton-grasses belong to this sedge order. Here the bracts wrap over one another, protecting the florets, in which both the stamens and pistils are contained; in this family there is but one pistil to a floret. But it is not in its flowering time that the Cotton-grass attracts our attention,—the little yellow stamens shed their pollen unheeded,—it is when the seed is formed, accompanied by its long tufts of white silky hairs, that it becomes an emblem for poet’s fancy, and all human fairness is supposed to gain in charm by being likened to the “Cana-grass of the Moor.” The downy tufts of the single-headed species (Erisphorum vaginatum) are highly ornamental, dotted among the purple Ling; but still more attractive is the clustering beauty of the narrow-leaved cotton-grass (E. angustifolium), scarcely less frequent than the other where the ground is swampy. There are several smaller and rarer species, but these are the most important.

In the true grasses the flower consists of glumes and paleo, answering to the calyx and corolla of other plants; both may be described as chaffy scales. The stamens are always three, with one exception, and form a prominent feature of the flower, giving the spike or panicle an appearance of extraordinary beauty during their brief continuance. The pistils are generally two. One other appendage accompanies the flowers of grass, a bristle or awn. The one exception to the three stamens is in the case of the sweet vernal grass. Here there are two stamens and two pistils. The florets are longer than their awns, the stamens longer still, bearing purple anthers; and the spike gives out sweet fragrance in drying.

The Mat-grass (Nardus stricta) forms the one exception to the two pistils; it has narrow leaves growing in a thick mat, and narrow spikes containing one row of florets, which throw out a fringe of purple anthers. It frequents moors and hill pastures.

All the other grasses have three stamens and two pistils, and we must look for their distinguishing marks in the glumes and paleo.

First we have a large group where the two or three glumes enclose a single floret only. To this belong the rounded spikes of the Fox-tail grasses (Alope curusAlopecurus [sic]), raised proudly, all covered with orange anthers, and lording it over meadow or cornfield or sludgy marsh; the similarly-formed Cat’s-tails (Phleum) of lower growth and purple anthers, tenants of the meadow, the pasture, and the sea-shore; the Canary grasses (Phalaris), the one with its rounded head and broad, overlapping, beautifully-striped glumes; the other with its panicles of soft florets waving by the river-side among the sedges, its relatives; the green Beard-grasses (Polypogon) of the sea-shore and salt marsh; the feathery Millet-grass (Milium), raising spreading panicles in such abundance as to form a green cloud over the brushwood; the Bent-grass (Agrostis), with its silky panicles adorning the field-path and hill-side and woodland; the Finger-grass (Digitaria), with its many spikes and purple glumes: and the Dog’s-tooth-grass (Cynodon), of similar habit, shyly frequenting our southern shores.

Next comes a group with two or three florets to