Meadow
field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants (grassland)
A meadow is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable conditions, but are often artificially created from cleared shrub or woodland for the production of hay, fodder, or livestock. Meadow habitats, as a group, are characterized as "semi-natural grasslands", meaning that they are largely composed of species native to the region, with only limited human intervention.
Quotes
edit- Ye have been fresh and green,
Ye have been fill’d with flowers,
And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.You have beheld how they
With wicker arks did come
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.You’ve heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round:
Each virgin like a spring,
With honeysuckles crown’d.But now we see none here
Whose silv’ry feet did tread
And with dishevell’d hair
Adorn’d this smoother mead.Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock and needy grown,
You’re left here to lament
Your poor estates, alone.- Robert Herrick, "To Meadows" in Hesperides (1648), no. 274
- With st. 4 cp. Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593), st. 24
- Robert Herrick, "To Meadows" in Hesperides (1648), no. 274
- And what’s a life? The flourishing array
Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.- Francis Quarles, Emblems (1634), Book III, Emblem xiii