Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/300

 alone, yield abundant pasturage to as many cattle as there is ever likely to be a demand for on the Falklands. The same writer proceeds to inform us that the immense abundance and luxuriant growth of this Grass, render it quite a striking feature in the landscape. The roots form great balls, which even rise 5 or 6 feet above the ground, and the long leaves, springing from the culms, hang down all round in the most graceful manner. The heaps or "tussacks" grow generally apart, but within a few feet of each other, the intermediate space of ground being quite bare of vegaetation, so that in walking among them, you are perfectly hidden from view, and the whole Tussack forms a complete labyrinth. (See the adjoining Wood-Cut).

The experiment of cultivating this valulable grass promised to answer well in the Falklands; where, in the Governor's garden, it was coming up srongly from seed, drilled in rows, like Turneps. It must, however, be taken into consideration, that for Tussack to thrive in this country, the plant must so far change its 'habits bfthe Southern Hemisphere, as to forget that our winter is its summer, and vice-versa.

D'Urville says that the Penguins build-their nests and hatch their young beneath the shady tufts of this grass.

The same despatch to the Colonial Office, in which the above description is given, contain ado a letter from the botanist of the Antarctic Expedition to the governor in which another grass, among the many valuable Gramineæ which the Falklands produce,'is particularly noticed. This is of scarcely inferior importance to the Tussack, and. being much more universally diffused over the islands, it must be far less particular as to soil and situation. It is a kind of Fescue-Grass, the Festuea Alopecurus of D'Urville (Arundo Alopecurus, Gaudiehaud). In the Report presented to Govr. Moody by the botanist, and transmitted to Lord Stanley, it is stated: "Another grass, however, of far more extensive distribution than the Tussack, scarcely yields to it in nutritious qualities. It covers every peat-bog with a dense and rich clothing of