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  CAMBRIDGE BIOLOGICAL SERIES.

  GENERAL EDITOR:--ARTHUR E. SHIPLEY, M.A., F.R.S.
  FELLOW AND TUTOR OF CHRIST’s COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

  GRASSES.

  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
  C. F. CLAY, MANAGER.
  London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
  Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET.

  [Illustration]

  ALSO

  London: H. K. LEWIS, 136, GOWER STREET, W.C.
  Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
  New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS.
  Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN & CO. LTD.

  [_All Rights reserved._]




  GRASSES

  A HANDBOOK FOR USE IN THE FIELD
  AND LABORATORY.

  BY

  H. MARSHALL WARD, SC.D., F.R.S.

  LATE PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.


  CAMBRIDGE:
  AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
  1908

  _First Edition 1901 Reprinted 1908_




PREFACE.


The following pages have been written in the hope that they may be
used in the field and in the laboratory with specimens of our ordinary
grasses in the hand. Most of the exercises involved demand exact
study by means of a good hand-lens, a mode of investigation far too
much neglected in modern teaching. The book is not intended to be a
complete manual of grasses, but to be an account of our common native
species, so arranged that the student may learn how to closely observe
and deal with the distinctive characters of these remarkable plants
when such problems as the botanical analysis of a meadow or pasture,
of hay, of weeds, or of “seed” grasses are presented, as well as when
investigating questions of more abstract scientific nature.

I have not hesitated, however, to introduce general statements on the
biology and physiological peculiarities of grasses where such may serve
the purpose of interesting the reader in the wider botanical bearings
of the subject, though several reasons may be urged against extending
this part of the theme in a book intended to be portable, and of direct
practical use to students in the field.

I have pleasure in expressing my thanks to Mr R. H. Biffen for
carefully testing the classification of “seeds” on pp. 135-174, and to
him and to Mr Shipley for kindly looking over the proofs; also to Mr
Lewton-Brain, who has tested the classification of leaf-sections put
forward on pp. 72-82, and prepared the drawings for Figs. 21-28.

That errors are entirely absent from such a work as this is perhaps too
much to expect: I hope they are few, and that readers will oblige me
with any corrections they may find necessary or advantageous for the
better working of the tables.

The list of the chief authorities referred to, which students who
desire to proceed further with the study of grasses should consult, is
given at the end.

I have pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to the following
works for illustrations which are inserted by permission of the
several publishers:--Stebler’s _Forage Plants_ (published by Nutt &
Co.), Nobbe’s _Handbuch der Samenkunde_ (Wiegandt, Hempel and Parey,
Berlin), Harz’s _Landwirthschaftliche Samenkunde_ (Paul Parey, Berlin),
Strasburger and Noll’s _Text-Book of Botany_ (Macmillan & Co.),
Figuier’s _Vegetable World_ (Cassell & Co.), Lubbock’s _Flowers, Fruits
and Seeds_ (Macmillan & Co.), Kerner’s _Natural History of Plants_
(Blackie & Son), and Oliver’s _First Book of Indian Botany_ (Macmillan
& Co.).

It is impossible to avoid the question of variation in work of this
kind, and students will without doubt come across instances--especially
in such genera as _Agropyrum_, _Festuca_, _Agrostis_ and _Bromus_--of
small variations which show how impossible it is to fit the facts
of living organisms into the rigid frames of classification. It
may possibly be urged that this invalidates all attempts at such
classifications: the same argument applies to all our systems, though
it is perhaps less disastrous to the best Natural Systems which attempt
to take in large groups of facts, than to artificial systems selected
for special purposes. Perhaps something useful may be learned by
showing more clearly where and how grasses vary, and I hope that the
application to them of these preliminary tests may elucidate more facts
as we proceed.

H. M. W.

CAMBRIDGE, _April_, 1901.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.
                                                              PAGE

  THE VEGETATIVE ORGANS                                          1


  CHAPTER II.

  THE VEGETATIVE ORGANS (_continued_)                           17


  CHAPTER III.

  GRASSES CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THEIR VEGETATIVE CHARACTERS   39


  CHAPTER IV.

  ANATOMY AND HISTOLOGY                                         62


  CHAPTER V.

  GRASSES CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS
    OF THE LEAF                                                 72


  CHAPTER VI.

  GRASSES IN FLOWER                                             83

  CHAPTER VII.

  GRASSES GROUPED ACCORDING TO THEIR FLOWERS AND
    INFLORESCENCES                                              99


  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE FRUIT AND SEED                                           119


  CHAPTER IX.

  CLASSIFICATION OF GRASSES BY THE “SEEDS” (GRAINS)            135


  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                 175


  INDEX, GLOSSARY AND LIST OF SYNONYMS                         177




CHAPTER I.

THE VEGETATIVE ORGANS.


That grasses are interesting and important plants is a fact recognised
by botanists all the world over, yet it would appear that people in
general can hardly have appreciated either their interest or their
importance seeing how few popular works have been published concerning
their structure and properties.

Apart from their almost universal distribution, and quite apart from
the fascinating interest attaching to those extraordinary tropical
giants, the Bamboos, West Indian Sugar-cane, the huge Reed-grasses of
Africa, the Pampas-grasses of South America; and from the utilitarian
value of the cereals--Maize, Rice, Wheat and other corn, &c.--everyone
must be struck by the significance of the enormous tracts of land
covered by grasses in all parts of the world, the Prairies of North
America and the Savannahs of the South, the Steppes of Russia and
Siberia, and the extensive tracts of meadow and pasture-land in Europe
being but a few examples.

Although in the actual number of species the Grass family is by no
means the largest in the vegetable kingdom, for there are far more
Composites or Orchids, the curious sign of success in the struggle for
existence comes out in grasses in that the number of _individuals_
far transcends those of any other group, and that they have taken
possession of all parts of the earth’s surface. Some species are
cosmopolitan--e.g. our common Reed, _Arundo Phragmites_; while
others--e.g. several of our native species of _Festuca_ and _Poa_--are
equally common in both hemispheres. On the whole the Tropics afford
most species and fewest individuals, and the temperate regions most
individuals.

Considering their multifarious uses as fodder and food, for brewing,
weaving, building and a thousand other purposes, it is perhaps not too
much to say that if every other species of plant were displaced by
grasses of all kinds--as many indeed gradually are--man would still be
able to supply his chief needs from them.

The profound significance of the grass-carpet of the earth, however,
comes out most clearly when we realise the enormous amounts of energy
daily stored up in the countless myriads of green blades as they fix
their carbon. By decomposing the carbon-dioxide of the air in their
chlorophyll apparatus by the action of the radiant energy of the sun,
they build up starches and sugars and other plant-substances, which are
then consumed and turned into flesh by our cattle and sheep and other
herbivorous animals, and so furnish us with food. The whole theory of
agriculture turns on this pivot, and the by no means small modicum of
truth in such sayings as “All flesh is grass,” and that the man who can
make two blades of grass grow where one grew before deserves well of
his country, obtains a larger significance when it is realised that the
only real gain of wealth is that represented by the storage of energy
from without which comes to us by the action of green leaves waving in
the sunshine.

The true Grasses, comprising the Natural Order Graminaceæ--also written
Gramineæ--are often popularly confounded with other herbs which possess
narrow green ribbon-like leaves, or even with plants of very different
aspects--e.g. Cotton-grass (_Eriophorum_) and other Sedges, and the
names Rib-grass (_Plantago_), Knot-grass (_Polygonum_), Scorpion-grass
(_Myosotis_) and Sea-grass (_Zostera_), as well as the general usage of
the word grass to signify all kinds of leguminous and other hay-plants
in agriculture, point to the wider use of the word in former times.
This has been explained by the use of the words _gaers_, _gres_,
_gyrs_, and grass in the old herbals to indicate any kind of small