Grasses

This handbook offers a practical guide to identifying and studying common grasses in field and laboratory settings, emphasizing careful observation with a hand-lens. It describes vegetative organs and their variation, leaf anatomy and histology, and provides classification keys based on vegetative characters and anatomical leaf sections. Later chapters treat flowering structures, inflorescences, fruits and seeds, and classify species by seed characters. Exercises, illustrative figures and tables aid specimen work, and the book includes a glossary, index and bibliography to support further study and field analysis of meadows, pastures, forage and seed samples.