‘282 —  TRIANDRIA DIGYNIA. | ‘Paspalin 
This is cultivated by the natives over many parts of India. — It 
delights in'a light, dry, loose soil, but will grow in a very barren - 
one. Time of cultivation the rainy season. 
Root fibrous.—Culms erect, ramous, jointed, smooth ; about two 
feet high, involved in the sheaths of the leaves.— Leaves sheathing, 
bifavious, longer than the culm, evefy part smooth. Sheaths longer 
than the joints, often embracing the spikes like a spathe.— Spikes 
axillary and terminal, from two to four, alternate, sessile, erect, se- 
eund.— Rachis broad, membranaceous, with a waved keel on the in- 
side.— Flowers oval, alternate, in two rows; in luxuriant plants 
the flowers are crowded without order.—Calyz, exterior valve three- 
nerved, interior valve five-nerved.— Seeds brown, smooth, size s 
that of hemp. a 
Obs. The seed is an article of diet with the Hindoos, particularly’ 
with those who inhabit the mountains and most barren par M 
country, foritis in such couatries only where it is cultivated, be- 
ing an unprofitable crop, and not sown where others more beneficial 
will thrive. I have eaten of the boiled grain, and thiuk i it as palata- 
ble as rice. E ge x 
2. P. Kora. Linn. Sp. Pl. ed, Willd. i. 332. — 3 Aa 
Spikes terminal, alternate ; ; flowers alternate, in two-rows, smooth. - 
Calyces from three to five-nerved. Culms below procumbent, from 3 
one to eight feet high. — 
P. orbiculare. Forst. prodr. N. 35. 
Hind. Kodu. i 
Teling. Neer (i. e. water) Aruga. 
A native of the borders of water courses. i 
Root fibrous, annual.— Culms resting on the powi near be 
base, above ascending, branchy, jointed, smooth ; from one to three — 
feet long.— Leaves as in P. scrobiculatum, but shorter. Spikes 
generally two, or three, though in very luxuriant plants I have 
- seen seven or eight, terminal, sessile, horizontal, and erect, the m" 4 
as in a the last described species. 
