VII: Oat Grass
The silly story of where lawns came from.
Good morning. Today is septidi, the 7th of Prairial, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le fromental, a foraging grass that looks like oats.
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The name oat grass is applied to many varieties of grass, but the one that matches the French word for today is most popularly known as "cat grass," because for whatever reason, those little obligate carnivores will chow down on it. (Likely just for the chlorophyll.) Another common name for this species – which is Arrhenatherum elatius by the way but my eyes glazed over that fifteen times just trying to spell it – is "false oat grass." What gives?
Every month on the calendar has its category of thing that it does to death. (We won't soon forget the rocks of Nivôse or the root vegetables of Frimaire.) This month it threatened to be grass, just from the name, but Prairial is strangely short on grasses compared to what's coming in the summer months, so today is a bit of a warmup on talking about grasses. And I got to say: it's grass. Reading about it is like watching it grow.
