26 The Plants of our Woods and Fields. 



same remarks will hold good in the Lycopods and Selaginellas ; the exqui- 

 site S. dcnsa of the greenhouse being represented in S. apoda, of the 

 swampy and grassy meadows of Massachusetts, and other foreign kinds in 

 the co-species of California. 



The seed-catalogues give us lists of grasses as attractive objects in gar- 

 dening. What can we do here ? Let us remember that Uniola latifolia, 

 whose flat and stiff seed-spikes rise so prominently upon the stout culm, 

 and hang so gracefully on one side, as it were, is found on the prairies 

 of the West, and extends southward as far as Florida ; a much-esteemed 

 garden ornament, and deservedly so. Some of the Andropogons are 

 .rivals of the pampas-grass ; the Aira, with its silvery husks and slender 

 wiry stems, waves on the dry and gravelly soils, and will grow elsewhere ; 

 the Eragrostis, or love-grass, has attractive spikelets of glaucous green ; the 

 cord-grasses, if not so common, would be admired for stateliness ; the hair- 

 grass is of the most delicate character ; the annual quaking-grass of the 

 garden has an equally beautiful representative in the Briza media of our 

 pastures ; the delicious vanilla-scent of the Hierochloa entitles it to con- 

 sideration independent of its lustrous chestnut florets. We have species of 

 JEriajit/iiis, which would stand favorably beside the sort advertised, and 

 grasses in the West and South as curious as any from abroad. Nor should 

 the sedges be overlooked, represented in some of remarkable grace, and 

 which we have found no difficulty in cultivating, — many indigenous to a dry 

 soil, and adapted to thip garden, such as C. plantaginea, platypkylla, vestita ; 

 and that most remarkable species, adapted to rockwork, and so rare, found 

 in the rich woods of the south, — the Caix Fraseriana of Sims, with strange 

 broad leaves and odd flower-spikes pushing out so early in May. 



The Messrs. Hovey & Co., so well known for their fine taste, and success 

 in cultivation, received a prize, at the last Annual Horticultural Exhibition 

 in Boston, for the best specimen-plant. It was a sedge, and called the 

 Cyperus alternifoVms. Loudon says it is " curious," grows two feet high, and 

 is a native of Madagascar, having been introduced into cultivation in 1781. 

 The tropical Cyperi are showy plants ; but we have native species. They 

 grow almost everywhere. Some are showy too, and all are pretty : but being 

 weeds of the cornfield, or common in the sands, nobody deems them fit for 

 flower-beds ; though who can tell what cultivation might do, rewarding 



