270 YRIANDRIA DIGYNIA, Andropogon. — 
All kinds of cattle are remarkably fond of the straw not- 
sarees its thickness, and solidity. | 
28. A. cernuus. R. 
Erect, from five to fifteen feet high; lower half with ver- 
ticils of roots from the joints, Panieles oval, with numer- 
ous, long, compound, cernuous branches ; glumes villous and 
fringed. Corol three-valved and fringed, the inner scarce 
awned, 
Bileus cernuus. Linn, sp. pl. ed. Willd. iv. 930. ; 
This species, (or variety of Sorghum,) is the kind cultivat- 
ed by the inhabitants of the Menipoora, Koonkee, and other 
mountainous districts immediately east of Bengal. The grain 
is milk white ; some of it was sown in the Botanic garden, 
during the early part of the rainy season of 1812, and in No- 
vember the plants were from ten to fifteen feet high, several 
ramous stems arising from the same root, or grain of seed ; all 
the joints of the lower half of the original stems which are as 
thick as a slender walking cane, throw out copiously. verti- 
cils of roots from all the joints, the lower ones near the soil 
_enter it, and give additional support and nourishment to the 
plants, which are of two, or more years’ duration, if suffered 
to remain; the leaves are from twenty to forty inches long, 
by woven these broad, soft and smooth, the rib white on both 
sides, Panicles large, oval on. the more’slender branches, 
aki in those, while in flower erect ; but in such as terminate 
the primary stems, the form is obscure, from the drooping ha- 
bit of their branches. The flowers agree with those of Shor- 
ghum, except that the awn is so small and short as to be hid 
within the glume of the calyx ; the neuter flowers are very 
minute, and consist of only one or two'slender, villous, caly- 
cine glumes. The grain of this plant is the staff of life of — 
those wild savage mountaineers, who inhabit the above-men- 
tioned countries, where it is one of the few articles cultivated = 
| by on: Cattle are fond ot ten ii or rather canes. ee 
