276
TUSSOCK-GRASS.
[Chap. IX.
1842
protecting, perpetuating, and transporting it to other countries, he has widely dispersed it. It appears singular that so striking a grass should abound where there is no native herbaceous animal to profit by its luxuriance: but it is no less certain that, had not civilisation interfered, the Tussock might have waved its green leaves undisturbed over the waters of the stormy Antarctic ocean, for ever perhaps, or until some fish, fowl, or seal, should be so far tempted by the luxuriance of the foliage, as to transgress the laws of nature, and adapt its organs to the digestion and enjoyment of this long-neglected gift of a bounteous Providence.
"It must appear strange to all who know grasses only in the pastures of England, that the patches of Tussock resemble nothing so much as groves of small, low palm trees! This similarity arises from the matted roots of the individual plants springing in cylindrical masses, always separated down to the very base, and throwing out a waving head of foliage from each summit. Bogs and damp woods in Britain very frequently produce a sedge (carex paniculata), whose mode of growth is, on a small scale, identical with that of the Tussock-grass, and to which the name of Tussock is applied. I have seen them two or three feet above the ground in South Wales; and if they were higher, larger, and placed close together, the general resemblance would be complete. The effect in walking through a large Tussock grove is very singular, from the