Randomly disperse copies of an object over a surface

Hi-

In 3D studio Max, it is possible to distribute objects over a surface at random. An example would be if I modeled several blades of grass, colored each a different shade of green, made their pivot points at the bottom of the blade, and then randomly distributed it over a hill-like plane - doing this process for each type of blade, seperately. The end result is a nice looking (static) field of grass.

Is it possible to do anything like this in Maya? My teacher flat out said it was not, but I wanted to double check. It seems fairly simple, and If I knew what the process was called, I could do my own investigating and try and play around with it.

Thanks.