Little Blue Stem, Bell Cedar

Many years ago, I got the strangest of bugs. I'd always dismissed grasses as close to impossible to learn, and whenever I was leading a natural history walk and someone asked me to identify one of the ubiquitous plants, I'd smile and beg off, suggesting that this was ultraspecialist territory. But I came to realize that this was mostly laziness, and while grasses can be pretty tricky, I'd managed to master real arcana, like copepod and tree cricket taxonomy, and certainly grasses couldn't be any more of a challenge. So I did what any self-respecting naturalist would do... should do... and procured the requisite textbooks and field guides. Then I settled into learning the characteristic floral and vegetative structures. Lastly, I started to put knowledge into practice. Eventually, I got competent enough that I could do nothing-but-grass walks, and though I'm still on the learning curve, I know many species by sight, such as this one: Little Blue Stem. Happily enough, the grasses no longer give me the blues.