June and the family Poaceae

The solstice is the season of grass.

Where I live, probably the classiest, smartest species is needle and thread grass (Stipa comata). This one blooms by late June and is  found in fields, high mountain passes and grungy vacant lots alike. It’s got a long, thin wispy tail coming from out of short, sharp seed head (the needle) and can be grabbed by the hand full, aimed and shot at an opponent:  friend, child or lover. It will stick in the clothes and hang there all day, say, in the small of the back. Note the economy in this brilliant design, meant to carry the species far into the future. A small barb rests on the “needle;” that’s what keeps it hooked into your clothes, grabs your pant leg, or any animal’s fur coat, only to be set down miles later, where the seed head can then do its job, tunneling itself into whatever soil it may happen to find. The same idea has kept alive ticks and burrs for centuries.

Needle and thread ought not be confused with Foxtail, the common name given to any of a number of grasses that grow a feathery tail along a long column that looks, surprise, like a fox’s tail. This grass is far less elegant than its cousin, but it is no less emblematic of the slow, delicious ripe fields of summer. This can grow in your back yard, the empty lot, or in salty soils found all over the country.

Then there is there is the common brome grass (Bromus inermis), marked by luxuriously wide, thick dark green leaves. This one, too, is everywhere in the fields of summer, generally in full glory by the solstice.  My favorite place to spot this one is out by the swollen, raging river where we take the dog off leash. Here you can smell the brome, a heady, thick June scent. You can leave the trail and walk to the wild center of the field near the secret ravine the kids discovered in spring, before the world sprouted and you could still get inside it and explore. You can even lay in the brome grass. The world utterly disappears. Even the kids in their bright clothes vanish. There is only the waving, thick, green smelling grass and the oblong space of sky directly overhead, generally dotted with high, smiling cotton ball clouds, moody and untrustworthy this time of  year, but also yielding, grinning down or crying, whatever it will, offering to the ground this bounty of green lushness. A week before solstice I did this and lost sight of the dog, who was tormenting a walker on the trail with his crazed chow on a long leash. The man was screaming “No! Go away!” while I was prostrate in the brome grass, hypnotized by these old friends of summer’s past.

Like it or not (and those with allergies generally do not), it’s grass that welcomes you back each year to that delicious, luxurious, smiling place called summer. You may not get to lay around in it very often, if at all. You probably don’t know the names of the fifty-odd species that make up your yard, and you might not know the difference  between the friendly, sweet-smelling brome (marked by a large, quite obvious capital W on its drooping leaves,  or its invaluable close relative, genus Triticum, (wheat) and the ratty, bitter feel and look of yet another Bromus, the invader cheat grass, (useless to most grazers and a sure sign of site disturbance). But it’s grass that calls you back to the place you learned to go each summer, a different mindset, one that longs for games, friends, family and beer. Quiet walks, animated discussions after dark, the sound of a single spoke speeding past your open front door, a street light illuminating a rich, wide Elm tree, casting its globular shadow across the sidewalk. Grass is the beginning of civilization. Every culture starts with its bread, whether it’s our doughy stuff, the Indian Naan, or the mighty tortilla–often made from corn. Don’t be fooled: corn’s a grain, and grains are grass. Grass was there at the beginning and I like to think  it’ll be there at the end, long after we’re gone and other giant slow moving beasts start the process over, chomping, pulling and spreading the seed of this simple, green opportunist that returns to us year after year.