Agrostology
Saw the sun today, but only at sunrise. Snow accumulating over much of the state to our north. After mailing a few packages at the post office, I stopped at the Cowling Arboretum for a walk.
In between the busy insect days and the cloistered silences of winter is the limbo of late autumn, an interregnum between the last asters and the flattening snow. This is a good time to turn one's attention to the grasses, to become for a day or two an agrostologist. With the plants still standing, it's easy to examine inflorescence and spikelets, leaves and glumes, before November gales and December storms break the stems and scatter the seeds.
I walked to the edge of the retention pond and found the water covered by a slushy film of first ice. Around me on the very edge of the pond was a stand of Prairie Cordgrass, each plant four to five feet in height, the once-flat leaves rolled up to form elegant fronds. The grass sways gently from wind on a windless day.
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