Not especially useful for beginner grass identification because concentrates on structural detail rather than overall appearance of growth. However, I recommend it for its excellent illustrated glossary.

As a former student of the late Dr. Harrington who taught me much about plant classification, I highly recommend this book. It is similar to his How to Identify Plants, but the diagrams are much better. It is a very thorough review of the morphology and terminology specific to sedges, rushes, and grasses. These are all very difficult families to identify and there are few books that so thoroughly describe the critical and unique morphology of these plants. This is a knowledge that is critical to the identification of these fascinating and important plants. Dr. Harrington also includes a section on the vegetative characteristics, especially of grasses. For field ecologists like myself, being able to identify plants without the flowers, especially grasses, is critical when doing quantitative sampling. If you are just a beginner in your pursuit of these difficult plants, this is an excellent and valuable resource. But for even the plant scientist this book provides an excellent reference to refresh your memory regarding the unique and important mophology of grasses, sedges, and rushes.

This book is practical and systematic. The topic is difficult, at best, and the author gives all the tools and understanding needed to build up your skills. As a consultant that works with native plant materials, I have found this book to be a useful field reference in separating out invasive species.

From the copyright date, this book was written in the fifties. The quality of the black and white photos is consistent with this guess, as is the rather pedantic style. There are also chapters on the structure of the nomenclature system, which is probably already well-known by most of the likely readers, and on how to collect plants, which may not be a good idea these days, at least for the rarer species.

For $6 more, I'd go for the similar book by James/Melinda Harris. More focussed; better illustrations; less pedantic style.