THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 31, 1857. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
437 
D 
M 
D 
W 
MARCH 31—APRIL 6, 1857. 
Weather ni 
Barometer. 
ear Lon 
Thermo. 
DON IN 
Wind. 
1856. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bf. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
31 
Tu 
Wood Sorrel (Oxalis). 
30.152—30.018 
60—20 
S. 
- . 
39 a. 5 
29 a. 6 
1 32 
6 
4 
13 
90 
1 
W 
Water Fennel (Callitriche). 
29-910—29.830 
68—33 
8. 
— 
V 
VI 
2m35 
3 
3 
55 
91 
2 
Th 
Early Orchis (Orchis). 
29.793—29.692 
66—42 
S. 
01 
35 
32 
3 22 
8 
3 
37 
92 
3 
F 
Spring Speedwell (Veronica) 
29.823—29.666 
54—44 
s.w. 
19 
33 
34 
3 53 
9 
3 
19 
93 
4 
S 
Willows, various (Salix). 
29-773—29.654 
59—30 
s.w. 
— 
30 
36 
4 13 
10 
3 
1 
94 
5 
Sun 
Palm Sunday. 
29 . 598 — 29.318 
57—40 
s. 
— 
28 
38 
4 29 
11 
2 
43 
95 
e 
M 
Spider Orchis (Ophrys). 
29.330—29.248 
57-27 
S.E. 
— 
26 
39 
4 41 
12 
2 
25 
96 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest 
temperatures of these days are 55.3°, and 32.4°, respectively. The greatest heat, 78°, occurred on the 3rd, in 1842; and the lowest cold, 16 °, 
on the 1st, in 1848. During the period 110 days were fine, and on 80 rain fell. 
I 
ORNAMENTAL GRASSES. 
STI'PA PENNA'TA. 
(Feather Grass.) 
This Grass, so commonly to be found in the windows 
of our seedsmen’s shops, is one of the most graceful of 
its tribe. It is among the Grasses what the Bird of 
Paradise is among birds. 
It is a perennial with fibrous roots; leaves in thick 
tufts, upright, long, narrow, sharp, rather rough, and 
dark green; sheaths of leaves striated, very long, 
especially the uppermost one, which is also considerably 
swollen, inclosing the young head of flowers, rising 
above it when blooming, the leaf being bent back, 
pendulous, striated, and with edges turned inwards; 
stipules oblong, blunt; panicle , or head, of flowers on a 
stem about a foot high, erect, composed of six or seven 
flowers; calyx of two nearly equal, spear-head shaped, 
concave, pointed valves, containing one floret; corolla 
of two valves nearly equal, in length, the outer valve 
spear-head shaped, edges turned in, slightly keeled, with 
a terminal, twisting, feathery awn, sometimes a foot 
long, jointed, and finally separable at the base; inner 
valve much narrower, awnless, turned in at the edges, 
smooth. Seed cylindrical, pointed, loose, closely in¬ 
closed in the hardened outer valve of the corolla, which 
is very sharp, and barbed with bristles at the base, so 
that, after being borne through the air sustained by 
the long awn, when it alights upon the soil it there 
soon penetrates, and is retained by the barbs. 
The beautiful and feathery appearance of the awns 
arises from their being thickly set with very fine, sof l. 
whitish, semi-transparent, diverging hairs. 
It is found on dry, mountain, rocky soils, and in such 
a situation was discovered, about tlie year 1724, by 
Dr. Richardson, in company with Thomas Lawson, both 
good botanists, on the limestone rocks hanging over a 
little valley, called Long Sleadale, about six miles north 
of Kendal, in Westmoreland. (Ray’s Synopsis, 3rd ed., 
p. 393.) No one has detected it there since, nor in any 
other part of the British Islands, and we fear that it no 
longer belongs to our native Flora. It blooms in 
August, and ripens its seed about the middle of Sep¬ 
tember. It belongs to the Triandria Digynia class and 
order of the Lin me an system. 
Mr. Sinclair says that he never could obtain plants 
from the seed of this Grass when sown in the ordinary 
way on soils in open situations, and it may be owing 
to some peculiarity of this kind that it is now not to 
be found wild in this country. In pots and favourable 
positions the seeds vegetated very well. In many parts 
of Germany it grows naturally on alpine or dry, sandy 
places much exposed to the sun. 
Gerarde, more than two centuries since, says, “ This 
elegant plant Clusius first observed to grow naturally in 
the mountains nigh to the baths of Baden in Germany. 
It is nourished for its beauty in sundry of our English 
gardens, and is worn by ladies and gentlewomen instead 
of a feather, the which it exquisitely resembles.” 
It is readily propagated by division in the spring, 
No. COCCXLIV. Vol. XVII. 
