The Description.
1 This strange Cotton-Grasse doth rather resemble grasse than rushes, and may indifferently be taken for either, for that it doth participate of both. The stalke is small and rushy, garnished with many grassie leaves alongst the same, bearing at the top a bush or tuft of most pleasant downe or cotton like unto the most fine white silke.
2 This Water Gladiole, or grassy rush, of all others is the fairest and most pleasant to behold, and serveth very well for the decking and trimming up of houses, because of the beautie and braverie thereof: consisting of sundry small leaves, of a white colour mixed with carnation, growing at the top of a bare and naked stalke, five or six foot long, and sometime more. The leaves are long and flaggie, not much unlike the common reed.
The Place and Time.
1 Cotton grasse groweth upon bogy and such like moorish places, and it is to be seene upon the bogs in Hampsted heath. It groweth likewise in Highgate parke neere London.
2 Water Gladiole groweth in standing pooles, motes, and water ditches. I found it in great plenty at a Village fifteene miles from London called Bushey.