"Beautiful and expansive…in Johnstun's Let the Wild Grasses Grow, Colorado has a successor to Kent Haruf." —SEAN PRENTISS, author of Finding Abbey Let the Wild Grasses Grow chronicles the lives of Della Chavez and John Cordova, childhood friends separated by a tragic accident, who find each other again during World War II after leading separate lives of struggle through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and, for John, abuse at the hands of his grandfather. This sweeping American love story celebrates the power of home landscapes, family heritage, and first love.
In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist Ian Johnson tells the stories of three ordinary Chinese citizens moved to extraordinary acts of courage: a peasant legal clerk who filed a class-action suit on behalf of overtaxed farmers, a young architect who defended the rights of dispossessed homeowners, and a bereaved woman who tried to find out why her elderly mother had been beaten to death in police custody. Representing the first cracks in the otherwise seamless façade of Communist Party control, these small acts of resistance demonstrate the unconquerable power of the human conscience and prophesy an increasingly open political future for China.
A practical and expertly illustrated field guide to over one hundred grasses, sedges, and rushes "No one will be able to claim that the identification of grasses, sedges, and rushes, which are of fundamental importance both environmentally and economically, are simply 'too difficult' after they have learned to use this excellent guide."--Peter Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden This elegant and easy-to-use guide is an updated and amended revision of Lauren Brown's seminal Grasses: An Identification Guide, which was first published in 1979. While maintaining the spirit and goals of the original edition--a portable, straightforward, and user-friendly guide for naturalists and plant enthusiasts--the new edition features more than one hundred grasses, sedges, and rushes that are presented with line drawings and color photographs, concise descriptions, and details on the uses of various plants throughout history. In addition, the authors are careful to highlight the subtle differences in similar species to avoid confusion, as well as offering relevant notes on plant survival strategies, invasiveness, and how different plants fit within the broader ecological landscape. Devoid of technical jargon, this volume is an indispensable tool for those curious about the often-overlooked grasses, sedges, and rushes that surround us.
These poets will plunge you into dreamlike landscapes of volatile proliferation: shape-shifting mothers, living father-corpses, and pervasively odd vegetation
Once covered by wild grasses, America's heartland is by nature a grassland, populated with plants whose ecological importance, practical value, and subtle beauty we are only now beginning to comprehend. Of the 3,000 species of wild plants in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, in the heart of the heartland, only two of every ten are grasses, and in some prairies just one or two of these can account for 80 to 90 percent of the ground cover. It is these major wild grasses, the native and the naturalized, that this field guide covers, as well as some not found in such large numbers but nonetheless widespread and easily noticed. From the more familiar (like big bluestem, little bluestem, Indiangrass, switchgrass, buffalograss, sideoats grama, and blue grama) to the less recognized (such as ticklegrass, rice cutgrass, and prairie wedgegrass), from the weedy to the desirable, each of the seventy species profiled in these pages appears in full-color, its fundamental characteristics clearly identifiable by novice and expert alike: flowers and seed heads, leaf details with size comparisons, and whole mature plant pictures. Though of ever broadening interest--to ranchers, gardeners, naturalists, and restorers of prairies and native landscapes--grasses are notoriously tricky to identify. A number of features of this guide make the task considerably easier. A handy system of "finding lists," allows a user to navigate quickly to identification of an unknown grass. Descriptions, written in clear and easily understood terms, focus on the primary characteristics of each species and are accompanied by distribution maps. And an illustrated glossary, leaf comparison section, and table of grass flowering dates provide additional information and opportunities for recognizing and appreciating various species. Putting these plants into ecological and cultural context, botanist and grass specialist Iralee Barnard gives readers, whether curious amateur, passionate naturalist, or professional, a new way of understanding the grasses of America's prairies and plains, including their plant structures and adaptations, their natural history, ecological associations, and cultural importance.
What makes a true garden out of a collection of flowering plants are the ferns, mosses, and grasses that are the verdant canvas on which nature paints its portraits. With this new volume, award-winning author Cullina completes the set of stunning books on native North American plants for the garden, 320 pp.
Missouri's diverse landscapes, geology, and climate have endowed the state with a rich and varied grass flora. From tallgrass prairies to forested Ozarks to Mississippi lowlands, the state offers an array of grasses that can be classified into six subfamilies of the Poaceae, eighteen tribes, and eighty-seven genera. Significant changes have been made in grass classification since the first edition of The Grasses of Missouri was published in 1961, resulting in an increased emphasis on phyletic criteria. Recognizing the recent advances in classification and changes in nomenclature, as well as new additions to the flora, this newly revised edition serves as a compilation of the native and naturalized species and subspecific taxa found in Missouri. Formerly divided into two subfamilies, the Festucoideae and Panicoideae, the state's grass flora is now represented by six subfamilies. While the Panicoideae have remained intact, the traditional Festucoideae are now separated into smaller, more cohesive groupings. Further revisions have resulted in eighteen tribes compared to the twelve identified in the first edition. Covering more than 275 species and subspecific entities, The Grasses of Missouri is an essential research tool for identifying grasses, complete with working keys, descriptions, line drawings, distributions, a glossary, and a bibliography. The professional and lay person alike will benefit from this indispensable manual.
Grasses are the world’s most important plants. They are the dominant species over large parts of the earth’s land surface, a fact that is reflected in the many different words that exist for grasslands, words such as prairie, veldt, palouse, and pampas to mention just a few. As a group, grasses are of major ecological importance, as soil binders and providers of shelter and food for wild animals, both large and small. Some grasses, such as wheat, rice, corn, barley, rye, tef, and sugar cane are major sources of calories for humans and their livestock; others, primarily bamboos, are used for construction, tools, paper, and fabric. More recently, the seed catalogs that tantalize gardeners each winter have borne witness to an increasing appreciation of the aesthetic value of grasses. The Manual of Grasses for North America is designed as a successor to the classic volume by Hitchcock and Chase. It reflects current taxonomic thought and includes keys, illustrations, and distribution maps for the nearly 900 native and 400 introduced species that have been found in North America north of Mexico. In addition, it presents keys and illustrations for several species that are known only in cultivation or are of major agricultural significance, either as progenitors of bread wheat and corn or as a major threat to North American agriculture because of their ability to hybridize with crop species. The Manual of Grasses for North America is a major reference work for grasses that will retain its value for many years.
Grasses are among the most ubiquitous plants on the planet. They inhabit a wide geographic range and are found in a variety of natural habitats. The small parts of the grass flower and specialized terminology, however, can make identifying grasses a challenging endeavor. Sarah Chamberlain’s Field Guide to Grasses of the Mid-Atlantic makes identification simpler for everyone—regardless of their previous botanical knowledge. Featuring an easy-to-use dichotomous key, this is a user-friendly guide to more than 300 types of grasses found from the Blue Ridge Mountains and southern plains to the Appalachians and the Allegheny Plateau. Each major entry contains detailed species diagrams as well as common names, habitats, and distribution. The book’s opening sections outline the parts of grass flowers and describe stem, leaf, and sheath characteristics. With a wealth of illustrations, instructions on how to use the key, and a glossary of terms, Field Guide to Grasses of the Mid-Atlantic is an indispensable reference for naturalists and conservationists, botanists, land management professionals, and students and scholars of mid-Atlantic flora.
