PENNISETUM GRASSES _ 637 
one side rolled within the other (convolute). The flowers are arranged 
in terminal panicles, each spikelet containing three narrow, keeled glumes, — 
of which the two outer ones are empty, the middle one containing the 
flower. They are natives of the Tropical and Temperate Regions, and few 
of them have been introduced for horticultural purposes. 
tipa pennata, the Feather Grass, has been grown in 
English gardens for hundreds of years. It is a continental 
species, and therefore likely to have been introduced at a very early date. 
It was certainly grown here three hundred years ago, for Gerard tells us 
the ladies of his day employed the flowers in lieu of feathers. S. juncea 
was introduced from France in 1772, and S. gigantea from Spain, 1823. 
STIPA ELEGANTISSIMA (most elegant). Stems numerous, 
erect, and branching, 2 or 3 feet high. Leaves slender, 
mostly erect. Flowers in a loose, wide-spreading panicle, 6 or 8 inches 
long, with long plumose awns from the glumes 
S. GIGANTEA (gigantic). Stems, 3 feet high. Flowers in a loose 
panicle; glumes awl-shaped; awns slightly zigzag, downy, five times 
longer than the glumes. 
S. PENNATA (winged or plumed). Feather Grass. Stems numerous, 
2 feet high. Leaves rigid, grooved, bristly. Panicle long and slender; 
awns about a foot long, feathered to the point. Plate 300A. 
The cultivation of this genus scarcely needs any 
comment. S. elegantissima makes a graceful pot-plant for 
the greenhouse, and the others do well in the border outside in almost 
any garden soil; but S. pennata will be found to flourish most in those 
that are dry and sandy. There is nothing attractive about this plant 
until the long feathered awns are developed. They may be propagated 
either by dividing the root, or by sowing seeds in spring. 
Description of Feather Grasses. A, Stipa pennata, natural size, 
Plate 300. flowers only. Fig. 1, a single spikelet with its awn. 
B, Pennisetum longistylum, leaf and spike, natural size. Fig 2, a 
spikelet with its awns. 
History. 
Principal Species. 
Cultivation. 
PENNISETUM GRASSES 
Natural Order GRAMINES. Genus Pennisetum 
PENNISETUM (Latin, penna, a feather, and seta, a bristle). A genus of 
about forty species of (mostly) greenhouse grasses. The flowers have a 
sin involucre consisting of many bristles, the inner ones feathered ; 
