Near the beach, I have often gathered the knot-grass, so named from the knottiness of its stem, and to be found flourishing everywhere:
"By the lone quiet grave,
In the wild hedgerow, the knot-grass is seen,
Down in the rural lane,
Or on the verdant plain,
Everywhere humble, and everywhere green."
Shakespeare has called it "the hindering knot-grass," on account of the obstacles its trailing, tangled stems offer to the husbandman. Milton speaks of it as
"The knot grass, dew besprent."
It is familiar to almost every eye, forming little green patches even between stones of our streets, its tiny pale-pink blossoms growing so closely to the stem as to be half hidden among the leaves. Its seeds and young buds afford a store of food for birds; and it is said that swine and sheep love to feed upon it. Milton tells us,
"The chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper of that savory herb,
The knot-grass."
It bears little resemblance to a grass but this reminds me that among our sea-side plants the grasses are perhaps the most interesting, as well as useful and important, and are often of great service by their spreading mass of tough underground stems offering a strong resistance to the inroads of the sea. Several of the shores of England are so protected; and the greater part of the coast of Holland, being composed of dikes, owes its security to the powerful obstacles the peculiar growth of these grasses affords. Thus we see
"The commonest things may ofttimes be
Those of the greatest utility.
How many uses hath grass which groweth,
Wheresoever the wild wind bloweth."
Useful as the sea-side grasses are, however, we have not space in this short paper to take more than a passing glance at them, remarking that the two most deserving of notice for their value in sea-resistance are the sea-wheat grass and the sea-reed.
I have often seen flourishing near the sea-coast the rich clusters of the ragwort (Senecio Jacoboea), bright as the golden sunbeam, waving its tall blossoms in the breeze, and emitting a strong smell of honey. It opens its flowers first in July, but often,