1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grass of Parnassus

GRASS OF PARNASSUS, in botany, a small herbaceous plant known as Parnassia palustris (natural order Saxifragaceae), found on wet moors and bogs in Britain but less common in the south. The white regular flower is rendered very attractive by a circlet of scales, opposite the petals, each of which bears a fringe of delicate filaments ending in a yellow knob. These glisten in the sunshine and look like a drop of honey. Honey is secreted by the base of each of the scales.

Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris). 1, one of the gland-bearing scales enlarged.