130 THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. [Avotst 1, tpg A 
trees and their Dates. The gathering of the | any particular claim up 
on popular interest, it 
` grain generally falls to the lot of the squaws, | obtained no permanent place in our collections, 
or native Indian women, who collect it in their | and seems to have been 
canoes by bending sheaves of the great | introduced within these 
panicles towards their bodies, and then threshing | the encouragement of 
entirely lost until re- 
last few years, under 
the Acclimatisation 
them with the paddles employed for the pro- | Society. The practical idea was to establish it 
pulsion of their simple vessels. Subsequently | on the borders of the Scottish lakes, with a view 
it is dried in the sunshine and winnowed, the | to its supplying food to water-fowl, as in America. 
grain being enveloped, when it drops from the | Messrs. Lawson, of Edinburgh, appear in par- 
stem, in plaited and cucullate glumes, such as | ticular to have exerted themselves strenuously, 
in other plants would constitute a husk. In an | but with what success we are not aware. A 
account we once had before us of a missionary | difficulty exists in regard to the preservation of 
_ journey undertaken in 1855 from Toronto to | the full vitality of the seeds during the transit 
the wild country which lies to the north-west of | from: Canada—many packets that have been for- 
Lake Superior, the Zizania grain was described | warded from time to time having become so 
as the chief pabulum of the entire party for a | dry that germination was greatly hindered, and 
considerable period, every one who ate it declar- occasionally, so it would seem, entirely nega- 
ing it not only ble but quit tritious as | tived. Methods have now been contrived for 
t 
any cereal obtained by agriculture. So pleasa 
- 
obviating this difficulty, and, as a bushel of the 
indeed is the Zizania to eat that people who in | seed has been promised to be sent to Kew, next 
the fall of the year make their way, out of | year may see the commencement of permanent 
curiosity or from love of adventure, into the | culture, as well as that 
of the application of 
region of its production, never fail to bring | Zizania we have yet to speak of. One would 
home a sackful as a present to the friends they | suppose that if packed in 
rejoin, and it would seem to be accepted in- | mud in which the plant i 
variably as a dainty. and root itself, the seeds 
winter in a box of the 
s accustomed to sow 
would keep good for 
There is, indeed, nothing new in the fact of growing purposes during any length of voyage 
the grain of this grass being so good anesculent, | or travel. 
innzus himself classes the Zizania with the Now as to the employment of Zizania straw 
cereals, saying, in the Philosophia Botanica, | asa paper material. That other grasses have 
P- 279, “ Cerealia sunt semina majora grami- | been utilised for this purpose needs no saying. 
ominibus quotidiein cibum veniunt ; | Many people, however, 
oryza, triticum, secale, hordeum, avena, zizania, | extent to which grass is employed in paper- 
: mays, &c.” The date of the preface to this | making. Sufficient is it to say here that in 1873 
celebrated volume is Sept. 16, 1750. Later | there was imported into England for the exclu- 
- authors have repeated what Linnzeus says, | sive use of the paper-makers no less a quantity 
n, for instance, in the Encyclopedia of | of Esparto-grass than 1 
ture; while Pinkerton, in his work on | Liverpool, Newcastle and Hull being the chief 
eog for the same general 
such books were rare—goes so far as to descriptions of paper for which Esparto has 
claim for the Zizania a pre-eminence such as | proved so serviceable that Zizania is adapted— 
r í "o = ‘ 
the Geography of North America—esteemed | receiving ports. It is 
when ok o 
usually is awarded only to the cereals of the | the descriptions, that is 
Old World. After praising it for its good | demand for newspapers, books and magazines. 
is surprise that “ pro- | Zizania yields fully as much of the raw mate- 
uctive as is this excellent plant (the Zizania), | rial, so to speak, as Esparto, and has the 
d habituated to an ungenial climate and to | great and peculiar merit of being compara- 
as which refuse all cultivation,” it should | tively free from silicates. Paper made from 
“be so little cared for by the | it is quite as strong and quite as flexible 
e 
qualities he expresses h 
settlers in the more northern parts, | as that which is 
=- who, as yet,” he continues, “have taken | easily bleached, economical in respect of chemi- 
specks and blemishes, 
PEEL Oo ees 
pi 
and, İs worse, with that larger unhappy | and the new paper 
Set, the people who don’t want to be informed j 
but the intelligent will, of course, always prefer 
to call it Zizania, a name to which there can be 
no possible objection, and which is every bit as 
as Rhododendron, or Chry- | pollution than is the case 
pitt mai = . os 4 
| nose and eye, to say 
the fishes and the 
Gy ee a 
as 1790, when it 
~ appears to have been cultivated by Sir Joseph | to 30 tons. The bulk might, course, bef 
_ Banks. But like other exotics, unpossessed of reduced by hydraulic pressure, but the cost of | 
no pains to cultivate and improve a vege- | cals, pure in colour, and remarkably free from 
the types employed by the printer ; it is also 
remarkably well adapted 
sa ; faving: 
made from Zizania straw, 
may find each in the other a kindly friend. 
The manufacture of Zizania paper has a claim 
upon public regard beyond even what has been 
said. The preparation involves much less river- 
and every one knows what this means for the 
1 nothing of the comfort of 
| e recreation of the Izaak 
It | Waltons of the adjacent country. 
discoveries usually have some hindrance 
with. In the present instance there is 
Five tons of Zizania that were recently i n i 
have no idea of the 
00,000 tons—London, 
to say, which are in 
rags ; it is 
for the reception of 
this in turn would be too serious to justify resort 
to i Commercially regarded, Zizania, i 
long it is to be hoped British America will a 
supply the mother country with abundance, By 
y 
= 
> 
at least 
appears assured. It is not as if 
the growth of the plant depended on human 
agency, nor yet as if it were exposed to the pos- 
sibilities of human destruction, or (being a — 
A 
io 
water-plant) to the casualties of weather. In 
these respects it is like the Zostera of our shores. _ 
The cutting, which is effected by a machine, is 
said to cause the plant to thrive and multiply 
introducing a different plant ; and as for exter- 
minating it by drainage, one might as well talk _ 
of draining the Thames. Finally, in price and | 
quality, Zizania paper is distinctly stated by the 
promoters of the manufacture to be one th. 
has “nothing to. compete with it.” The con 
pany have obtained the concession of the whoF! 
of the province of Ontario, the only one in whic 
the plant grows to any useful extent; and the 
least one can do is to wish them success in their 
undertaking. G. 
New Garden Plants. 
Hypoxis PANNOSA, Baker,” 
This is a yellow-flowered Cape species of Hypoxis, 
with hairy leaves arranged in a dense ristichous ro- 
: T 
former for garden purposes, the fi 
less showy, vi by th 
The most distinctive points about it are the 
_ soft, but ely hi 
both si 
ves, 
style and filament than 
with other materials, 
hoped, to the | 
nd, in the 
wi > y - "i I => 
_ 14—2 lines long, many of which are adpressed to 
| * Fotis rs 
oF © tas teipore foe 
ow perianth segments, 
what district of the Cape it came. 
from which these notes were taken flo 
Kew collection in June 
ensely all over the back, 
dense tristicho-rosulatis recurvatis lane 
florendi pedalibus e basi g—r2 lin, latis sensim 
a | attenuatis acute carinatis utrinque 
