THE COLDER TEMPERATE ZONE. 171 



violets, crowfoots, plants of the cruciform and 

 pink tribes, thrift, and celery, are among the 

 most conspicuous of the herbaceous plants. 



It is singular that, in this distant island, there 

 are a greater number of plants identical with 

 those of the British isles than in any other 

 country of the southern hemisphere : thirty- 

 three flowering plants, and forty-eight mosses, 

 with nearly all the lichens, being common to 

 both, though principally absent from the inter- 

 mediate latitudes. On the Falkland Islands, 

 though in a lower latitude, not a tree is to be 

 seen, and the only large shrufo, Veronica ellip- 

 tica, is very rare. Two plants, however, are 

 peculiar to these islands. One of these, the 

 balsam bog, (Bolax globaria^) is an umbellife- 

 rous plant, but of very peculiar habit. It 

 grows in tufted and very firm hemispherical 

 masses, of a yellow green colour, often four 

 feet high, and as many in diameter ; a strong- 

 smelling resinous substance exudes from it, 

 perceptible at a distance. The tussack grass 

 \Festuca fldbellatd) is a still more singular 

 plant, but yet the most useful in the islands. 

 Each tussack is a separate plant, occupying 

 about two square yards of ground. It forms a 

 hillock of matted roots, rising straight and 

 solitary out of the soil, often six feet high, and 

 four or five in diameter, from the top of which 

 issues a thick grassy foliage of blades, six feet 

 long, drooping on all sides, and forming with 

 the leaves of the adjacent plants an arch over 

 the ground beneath it, which affords shelter to 



