Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/307

] feet high, with a diameter of three or four feet; instead of forty culms, there must be four hundred; and the leaves, now three feet long, must attain seven, ere the Tussock of England can compete with its parent in the Falklands. Though, however, the stoles (if I may so call the matted roots of this grass) in the most vigorous native specimens attain a height of seven feet, it is certain they are very productive before they have reached two or three. By the time the leaves have gained their great size, the bases of the culms are nearly as broad as the thumb, and, when pulled out young, they yield an inch or two of a soft, white, and sweet substance, of the flavour of a nut, and so nutritious that two American sealers, who deserted a vessel in an unfrequented part of the Falklands, subsisted on little else for fourteen months.

"Again, the Tussock-grass field, when fully established, must not be grazed indiscriminately by cattle. These creatures and the pigs have already diminished its abundance in the Falklands; for, after devouring the foliage, they eat down the stumps of the culms, greedily following them into the heart of the mass of roots from which they spring, for the sake of the white core just described; the rain-water lodges in the cavity thus formed, and decay so surely follows, that I have seen nearly half a mile of Tussock-grass plants entirely destroyed by no other means.