‘We will accompany thee and lead thee through a grass-plot…’ John Gerard’s Historie of plants, 1597. 

Scotland has wonderful grasses. In this collaboration of poetry and photography we have brought home a harvest to share.

We confidently hope to secure the attention of a large proportion of the observant for the elegant grasses now beginning their varied succession in our rich meadows and pastures. Once begun, we have no doubt of the acquaintance being succeeded by admiration, and ripening into friendship, nor of the cordial satisfaction resulting from the new study. We earnestly entreat our readers to throw themselves without delay into the pursuit of grass-lore, and to begin to collect and to study at once, so that the present season may be fully utilised; for we aim at practical advantage, as well as intellectual, amusement.‘ Margaret Plues,  British Grasses,  1867.

Grasses have been overlooked. Omnipresent but unnoticed, they cover around a third of our planet. When people overlook plants nowadays, this is often referred to as ‘plant blindness’. For ourselves, we found that what we had regarded as simply grass revealed itself as a complex and fascinating family of plants. Casting our eyes along the road-verge and shoreline we began to recognise the grasses as distinct from one another. We were starting to see the grasses. As Victorian botanist Margaret Plues promised, our acquaintance with the grasses was succeeded by admiration and ripened into friendship. 

‘The grasses are an extraordinarily successful group and their success has been based on three recurring themes: (1) their ability to adapt to the changing environment; (2) their ability to coexist with man and his grazing animals; and (3) their possession of a very distinct life-form that remains faithful to a single architectural idea but which has almost endless, and often very ingenious, variations.’ Tom Cope, Grasses of the British Isles (BSBI, 2009).

Grasses are part of Scotland’s natural and social history. Early forms of grass appeared at the same time as the last dinosaurs. It was the arrival of the grass that allowed human beings to settle and form communities.

Humans and grasses continue to have a close relationship. Grasses need to be used, to regenerate themselves. When fields were scythed, cattle would be let in afterwards to tread the seeds into the soil. This continued the grazing and treading of the domestic animals of the first farmers. Before them, wandering wild bison encouraged the growth of grasses.

A Harvard study on the positive effects of contact with nature during lockdown took place at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Among the trees and greensward of the Arboretum, the study noted a decrease in negative thoughts and a reduction of mental fatigue. In our local green spaces, where we can connect with nature on our doorstep, many people find solace and endurance for the hard times.

Grass is good for us. Green is good for us. Green is comforting and refreshing, the spring grass brings hope and warmth. It is a human colour, we respond to green. It has always been the colour of hope and of annual renewal, the sign of awakening life. The grasses can be trodden down and crushed, yet survive.

As the Chickasaw poet, Linda Hogan, observes,

Watching things grow,
wondering how
a cut blade of grass knows
how to turn sharp again at the end

 from Dark.Sweet. (Coffee House Press, 2014).

Walking across a patch of grass becomes sustaining, a felt experience that has an impact on the body. When the wind is blowing through grass on the moor or on the shoreline, the whole ground moves and shimmers and there is a great green presence about it. In our experience, looking at grass and listening to words about the grass has made us feel more joyful and more connected to nature. We hope this collection does the same for you.

Valerie & Rebecca