Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/172

162 each pair of glumes. Here we have the elegant Hair-grasses (Aira), with such fine stems and airy panicles, that pencil can hardly imitate their lightness; these have members of great beauty in the woods, the fields, and on the river-bank: the Melic grass (Melica), one of our earliest grasses, remarkable for its broad, delicately-tinted foliage and purple fly-like florets; the Soft-grass (Holcus), with a crowded panicle of pink-tinged downy florets, and soft, hairy leaves; the green Panick-grasses (Panicum), with elaborate and compact panicles, often cultivated in gardens for their verdant appearance; the early flowering blue Sesleria, the tenant of chalky hills; the familiar Quaking-grass (Briza); the no less familiar Meadow-grass (Poa), common as a weed in our gardens, and, in many species, an important contributor to the richness of the meadow; the nearly allied Sweet-grass (Glyceria), its many florets headed by the two glumes, and forming little spikelets on the panicle,—these frequent chiefly watery places, though there are species which prefer the hill-side, or dry wall; the Cock’s-foot-grass (Dactylus), with its coarse herbage and distantly-branched panicle, the stem resembling the claws of a cock’s foot; the Fescue-grass (Festuca), with its graceful panicles adorning meadow, pasture, wood, and waste ground; the Dog’s-tail-grass (Cynosurus), with its one-sided spike; the Brome grass (Bromus), its solid spikes in erect or most gracefully drooping panicles, often attaining great height, and vying with the Cypérus-sedge in elegance of curve; the Oat-grass (Avena), represented by the true oat, and, with members of various size, tenants of the meadow, the corn-field and the woodland; and the Reeds (Arundo), the graceful ornaments of our ponds and river-banks, with their large panicles of glossy florets, the paleo surrounded by long, soft hairs, which give a woolly appearance to the clusters when in seed, almost vying with those of the Cotton-grass.

Lastly, we have a group where the florets are fixed on a jointed common stalk, one pair of glumes containing many florets. To this group belong the Darnel-grass (Solium), with its long spike beset by little spikelets on either side the stem; the Hand-grass, with its spike tapering, and its stem twisted into angular elbows, an inhabitant of sea-side pastures; the Wheat-grass (Triticum) raising its rounded spikes in the meadow or corn-field, or on the sea-shore; the Barley (Hordeum), of bearded respectability, its meadow and waste-ground species claiming relationship with the dignified occupant of the cultivated field; and the Lyme-grass (Elymus), whose lordly spikes adorn the sand-banks, while its roots form them into sea-barriers.

Among these numerous genera, each with their group of species bearing a family likeness, while possessed of individual beauties, we have many members of interest and utility. The rounded head of the Canary-grass affords food for the domestic birds so (sometimes over) liberal with their song, while a striped variety of its brother, the Reed-canary-grass, is a familiar and welcome garden-plant, affording us beautiful flags of “ribbon-grass” for our nosegays.

The Dog’s-tooth-grass, though only interesting here as a rare plant, is of high value in India, being held sacred as “Doob-grass” by the Brahmins; it is the only grass there at all calculated for lawns, and the European settlers employ the natives to collect the plants from the plains for this purpose.

The Panick-grasses, found rarely in our fields, but cultivated in our gardens, are charming for bouquets, making a perfect contrast with the more diffuse and pink-tinted panicles of the soft grass; but their great interest consists in their near relationship to the Millets of India, important there as our corn is here; and the Panick-grasses of Brazil and Jamaica are valuable as pasturage.

Of the wide-spread uses of the Cereal grasses we hardly need to speak. From the time of the Exodus, wheat has furnished the staff of life to man, and received frequent mention in the history of all temperate climates, affording to the inhabitants of such countries the most reliable article of food. Even its “good-for-nothing brother,” the Couch-grass, though generally execrated as a troublesome weed, has so nutritious a root that it afforded nourishment to our forefathers in time of famine, and when boiled will always form good food for pigs.

Barley was much more universally used in ancient times than it is now. It is valuable as being able to bear great extremes of temperature. In hot countries two crops are grown in one year. On the Continent it is still much used for bread, but we prefer it as malt.

The oat is the grain easiest of cultivation; a cold climate suits it best, and we get our best oatmeal from Scotland and Friesland. It is much used in these countries for porridge and oatcake.

Rye is chiefly grown as a green crop here, but a portion of the meal mixed in brown bread is a great advantage; it is subject to the fungus-disease, called ergot, terrible maladies, and even death, resulting from eating ergotted rye. The fungus swells the grain to twice its natural length, causing it to assume the form of a black horn.

The common rice (Oryza sativa), belongs to the grass family, and holds as important a place in the economy of nature in the tropics, as wheat does in temperate regions. It produces a very large crop, one acre affording from thirty to sixty bushels. Rice flourishes best on low lands where the moisture is abundant.

Noble as is the stature of the Pampas and Tussac grasses, they are out-done by the lord of grasses, the Sugar-cane,—handsome plants attaining a height of sometimes twenty feet. The stem is divided by the joints with which we are familiar, and from each of which sprouts a long narrow leaf. The florets are feathery, like those of our reeds.

Many species of cane are of great utility, their sap yielding sugar, their stems forming furniture, thatch, and, in the smaller species, pens. The cane is propagated by cuttings; these, planted about March, are fit to be cut in September or October. The plants only need to be renewed once in four or five years.