Meadow

A  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

 * 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


 * 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