THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 2, 1857. 127 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
JUNE 2—8, 1857. 
Weather nb 
Barometer. 
:ar Lon 
Thermo, 
DON IN 
Wind. 
1856. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.&S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
2 
To 
Whit Tuesday. 
29.891—29.798 
73—36 
S.W. 
— 
50 a. 3 
6 a. 8 
1 29 
10 
2 
20 
153 
3 
W 
Ember Week. 
30.017—29.957 
77—39 
S.W. 
— 
49 
7 
1 38 
11 
2 
10 
154 
4 
Th 
Stonewort (Chara tomento). 
30.108—30.046 
75—45 
W. 
— 
48 
8 
1 50 
12 
2 
1 
155 
5 
F 
Prickly Stonewort (C. hisp). 
30.143—30.103 
63—33 
N.E. 
— 
47 
9 
2 4 
13 
1 
50 
156 
6 
S 
Privet (Ligustrum vulgare). 
30.253—30.189 
66—46 
N. 
— 
47 
10 
2 22 
14 
1 
40 
157 
7 
Sun 
Trinity Sunday. 
30.282—30.218 
73—45 
s. vv. 
— 
46 
ii 
rises 
© 
1 
29 
158 
8 
M 
Enchanter’s Nightshade. 
30.203—30.178 
72—52 
S.W. 
— 
46 
12 
9 a. 53 
16 
1 
18 
159 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest 
temperatures of these days are 71.0°, and 46.6°, respectively. The greatest heat, Q0°, occurred on the 7th, in 1846 ; and the lowest cold, 35°, 
on the 2nd, in 1855. During the period 108 days were fine, and on 88 rain fell. 
USEFUL GARDEN GRASSES. 
FESTU'CA DURIU'SCULA. 
(Hard Fescue Grass.) 
i This excellent lawn Grass is a perennial. Roots fibrous, 
and sometimes throwing out short lateral shoots. Stem 
about two feet high, erect, leafy, round, streaked, 
smooth. Lower leaves long, very slender, stiff, pointed, 
bristle-shaped from their sides being pressed together, 
and streaked; upper leaves broader and flat; edges and 
keels of all rougliish, and all milky green. Leaf-sheaths 
close, smooth. Stipules very short, cloven. Flower- 
head an oblong unilateral panicle, much spreading 
when in flower, its branches being at an acute angle, 
pointing upwards from the stem, rough. SpiJcelets more 
or less red, at first cylindrical, but becoming flattened 
as the glumes expand. Calyx sharp-pointed. Florets 
from four to seven in number, keeled, flattened, generally 
smooth, the uppermost often imperfect; the outer valve 
tipped with a straight, rough awn shorter than the 
valve; inner valve roughish at the marginal ribs, 
slightly cloven at the point. Stigmas cylindrical. 
Anthers purple, cleft at the ends. It belongs to the 
Linnsean class and order Triandria Digynia. 
We have said that this is an excellent lawn Grass, and 
it is so, because the herbage is very fine, it thrives on 
almost any soil, becomes green early in the spring, 
endures well the drought of summer, bears a good colour 
even in winter, and throws up but few flower-stems. If 
it is prevented producing any of these stems, either by 
constant mowing or the pasturing of sheep, it becomes 
remarkably thick and carpet-like. When fed off by 
sheep its tufts sometimes acquire a curious hemispherical 
form, as is observed and pictured by the late Mr. Knapp 
in his “Journal of a Naturalist.” He says:— 
“ Plate 2 represents the tufted head and entire roots 
of a Grass gathered from a down fed by sheep from time 
immemorial. It is probably that of the Hard Fescue 
(.Festuca duriuscula), which, having been constantly 
eaten down by cattle, has never thrown up flowering- 
stems, giving out only radical leaves. These appear to 
have been cropped short as soon as they have sprung 
up, the less succulent and strawy portions only being 
left like a ball upon the surface, as a bush constantly 
clipped by the gardener’s shears. The root appears to 
have annually increased, though the upper parts it was 
destined to nourish have been destroyed, until it became 
a lock of closely-compacted fibres, like a tuft of hair, 
six or eight inches in length. Furze bushes, growing 
upon many downs in Wales, Devon, and Cornwall, 
assume commonly tbe appearance of large, green, 
dense balls, every tender leaf being constantly shorn 
away by the sheep and rabbits that frequent those 
places, and present, upon a larger scale, the very ap¬ 
pearance of these grass balls. Our specimens are rather 
local than general, and were the produce of the Malvern 
Hills.” 
The Grasses were much neglected by our earliest 
botanists, and this is not an exception. It is first men¬ 
tioned as an English plant by Ray. 
No. CCCCLIII. Vol XYIII. 
