270 TRIANDRIA DIGYNIA. AtldropogOU* 



All kinds of cattle are remarkably fond of the straw not- 

 withstanding- 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. Panicles oval, with numer- 

 ous, long, compound, cernuous branches ; glumes villous and 

 fringed. Corol three-valved and fringed, the inner scarce 

 awned. 



Holcus cernuus. Linn. sp. pi. ed. Willd. iv. 930. 



This species, (or variety of Sorghum,} is the kind cultivat- 

 ed by the inhabitants of the Muni\ioora, 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 steins 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 two or three broad, soft and smooth, the rib white on both 

 sides. Panicles large, oval on the more slender branches, 

 and 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 tew articles cultivated 

 by them. Cattle are fond of the straw, or rather canes. 



