Page:The birds of Tierra del Fuego - Richard Crawshay.djvu/36

xviii In Ferns. Bracken is absent; but, instead of it. Lomaria alpina completely covers the downs in places. Owing to the frost, like many other things, it becomes a brick-red. Noticeable Lichens are Sticta; Parmelia luguhris; Ramallna scopulorum; and Usnea of shorter growth than in the forest.

Amongst the Grasses, there are such familiar and widely-distributed forms as Alopecurus alpinus, Plileiun alpmwn, Poa of several species including P, pratensis, and Aira of several species including A. flexuosa. The Tussock (Dactylis coespitosa) is the most remarkable of all. Other Grasses are Arundo pilosa; Hierochloe magellanica; Avena leptostacliys; Agrostis of many species; Trisetum of several species; Bromus; Hordeum; Triiicum elymus; and Festuca of many species large and small, growing in paint-brush-like tufts, every head carrying a needlepoint of varying degrees of fineness—F. gracilllma being perhaps the finest of all.

No mention of the wonderful Tussock Grass will suffice without some account of its growth. "To all who know Grasses only in the pastures of England," Sir Joseph Hooker says, "patches of Tussock resemble nothing so much as groves of small low Palm-trees. This similarity arises from the matted roots of the individual plants springing in cylindrical masses, always separated down to the very base, and throwing out a waving head of foliage from each summit. The effect in walking through a large Tussock grove is very singular, from the uniformity in height of these masses, and the narrow spaces left between them, which form an effectual labyrinth; leaves and sky are all that can be seen overhead, and their curious boles of roots and decayed vegetable matter on both sides, before and behind; except now and then, where a penguin peeps forth from his hole, or the traveller stumbles over a huge sea-lion, stretched along the ground, blocking up his path. The peculiar mode of growth of this Grass enables it to thrive in pure sand, and near the sea, where it has the benefit of an atmosphere loaded with moisture, of soil enriched by decaying sea-weeds, of manure, which is composed of an abundant supply of animal matter in