24 PEACOCK : COW-GRASS AND RYE-GRASS. 
of Schreber, of seed catalogues. The root is slightly creeping and 
extremely fibrous, foliage darker in colour and more hairy than our 
cultivated kinds. ‘The stipules are terminated with narrower and 
longer points. The flower-stalks are in general longer and more 
slender, with an evident disposition to grow bent and flexuous. The 
heads of flowers are less crowded with florets, although, apparently 
to the sight, equally as large as the common cultivated clover. 
When young, the flower-heads have the appearance of extreme 
woolliness or pubescence. This variety is the most nearly perennial 
we know, especially in the clayey districts and in soils of a peaty 
nature. If it were hybridised with sativum, valuable results might 
be expected—a heavy cropping form with creeping fibrous roots, 
perennial on most soils. The annual Cow-grass, sown in rich garden 
soil, will stand for years, though it gradually diminishes in time, 
when in the nearest field it dies away during the second winter. 
Only quite lately the bacteria-nitrogen theory* may have given us 
a clue to the reason ; time alone will say. 
What has just been written of our Clovers forcibly reminds us of 
the Rye-grass controversy, which has raged and will no doubt rage 
for years among the unobservant. As a field-botanist and writer of 
certainly an annual on some soils. Of the shop forms some are 
much more lasting than others—Paceys (Lolium perenne, ramosum 
G. Sinclair)—for instance, but none of them can compete with the 
native growths of the soil in this respect. I have absolute proof 
that the Italian variety on some soils will last for years in permanent 
pasture.j It is the locality, the property of the ground, and not of 
the species. But why the stoloniferous variety, Lolium Whitworthiensts — 
G. Sinclair, is not used for permanent pasture along with Zrifolium — 
medium, is more than the wit of a mere botanist can guess. Its 
original observer and introducer, the late G. Whitworth, wrote of it:— 
‘ About 80 acres of rather thin poor wold-land incumbent on chalk, 
star SR ens beable Stal See RN ag AR, en a 
* ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,’ 1896, p. 253. 
t This has also been observed by my friend Mr. Thomas Warner, of Leicester 
