54 TILLERING IN INDIAN SUGARCANES 



clumps observed years ago in Barbados, where all the buds and roots of the 

 short canes shoot out, till a dense mass of grassy leaves is produced in place 

 of a few tall healthy canes. (For an example of this kind of growth, see 

 PI. XII, fig. 1.) 



Another feature in the branching of grasses may be noted here. It is 

 usual to divide them, according to their mode of growth, into tufted grasses and 

 sod-formers. In the latter, underground branching assumes an intense form, 

 each bud piercing the base of its enveloping leaf sheath, and again branching 

 itself, until, with the masses of roots formed at the bases of the joints, the soil 

 is permeated so thoroughly that it can be cut into coherent slabs, as in lawns 

 and permanent pastures. The individual plants are closely interlocked and it 

 becomes very difficult to dissect them out without injury. The main feature 

 in these grasses is the great development of underground runners or stolons, 

 the ends of which emerge and bear tufts of leaves for the purpose of nutrition, 

 while their place is taken by buds near the upward bend, and the underground 

 part is thus formed of a mass of sympodia. Flowering takes place at a certain 

 season, but this does not interfere with the underground branching. In the 

 tufted grasses, on the other hand, after a limited period of underground 

 branching, a number of erect shoots are formed which in due course proceed to 

 the formation of flowers and grain. The buds in this case do not pierce the 

 bases of the enclosing leaf sheaths, but grow up inside them, emerging where 

 the sheath joins the lamina, only splitting the leaf sheath by their increase in 

 thickness. The individual plants are easily separable, do not interlock, and 

 each forms a more or less distinct tuft (c/. Percival, Agricultural Botany). 



It is at once obvious that the sugarcane belongs to the latter class, as 

 do the usual cultivated cereals. This also applies to the wild Saccharums, 

 Munja, Narenga, arundinaceum and spontaneum, grown on the Cane-breeding 

 Station. The two former are typical tufted grasses, no cane is formed and the 

 flowering shoots are ephemeral structures, drying up after the seed is ripened. 

 In Saccharum arundinaceum and Saccharum spontaneutn, solid canes are formed. 

 Saccharum spontaneum, although undoubtedly a tufted form, produces long" 

 underground shoots which emerge at intervals and thus spread the plant over a 

 considerable area. It is difficult in growing this species, either from seed or 

 from sets, to confine it to its bed, and the neighbouring paths are soon invaded. 

 We may thus imagine an approach to the sod-former here. The nearest 

 approach to sod-formation in Saccharum spontaneum which we have observed 

 is on the banks of the Irrawaddy, where sandbanks are protected from being 

 washed away by an interlacing mass of roots and runners, which forms a 



