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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