C. A. BARBER llS 



buted over all parts of India and everywhere flowers profusely. It has been successfully 

 crossed with thi-ee North Indian canes in the Cane-brceding Station. Sacchurum arundinaceum 

 appears to be at home in Assam, where it flowers freely, the hill section of the Assam railway 

 revealing a mass of its showy spikes all along its banks. This .species probably needs the 

 humid Assam climate for perfection of growth, for it s(jon becomes rare in a westerly direction. 

 It is recorded as flowering in the Botanic Garden at Saharanpur,' but the specimens planted 

 in the grounds of the Lyallpur Agricultural College have not flowered during the eight years 

 since they were introduced. In South India Saccharum arundinaceum is frequently planted, 

 and is the usual hedge for belel [Piper Belle) plantations. It is thus very common at Coim- 

 batore but, although allowed to grow for .several years, it has never been known to flower. It 

 flowers, however, in the moister north-eastern part of the Madras Presidency and is reported to 

 have been in flower at Tanjore. Saccharum Miinja is not much in evidence in Assam and 

 Bengal, if it occurs there but, jjassing along the submontane tract to the west, it soon replaces 

 Saccharum arundinaceum and extends, flowering profusely, from Bihar to the Punjab. It has 

 been introduced to the Cane-breeding Station and grows and flowers fairly freely, but the 

 flowers are poor and nothing like so handsome as in the north. The stamens are, however, 

 fairly well developed. Saccharum Xarenya is, again, at home in Assam, where vast tracts 

 on the northern .side of the Brahmaputra and the Shillong hills are covered by it, often to 

 the exclusion of other vegetation. It appears to pass along the foot of the Himalayasjo the 

 north-west. A chance arrow collected in Xortli Bihar has given many seedlings in the Cane- 

 breeding Station, and it grows and flowers freely there with fully developed stamens. It has 

 been successfully crossed with Vellai. a thick introduced cane. In conclusion, there seems to 

 be a certain amount of confusion in the classification of Indian Sacchanims. In the Flora uf 

 British India, Saccharum Munja and S. arundinaceum are placed together under the latter 

 specific name. This arrangement is followed in the Calcutta Herbareum. From my know 

 ledge of the growth of these plants and their divergent distribution, I cannot but feel that 

 they are entirely separate, but this conclusion is chiefly based on their leaf and stem charac- 

 ters. In a recent tour in Assam and Bengal, I have, moreover, come across a number of 

 puzzling forms which lead me to suspect that still other wild Saccharums may occur there 

 as yet unseparated or undesciibed. None of them were, however, in flower at the time of 

 my visit. 



As many of the seed pau.s during the ] 912-14 period also showed a good 

 growth of various grasses, the whole question of the early treatment of seedlings 

 was overhauled and a gieat luunber of methods were tried, both as to the most 

 suitable medium in which to grow them (from sand, red and black earth, leaf- 

 mould, manure, to pounded peat from the Nilgiris and various mixtures of 

 these substances) and the manner in which the medium should be treated, so 

 as to destroy any grass or weed seeds that they might contain. The following 

 is the method (copied from Java) in use at the time of writing. Old horse 

 manure is obtained, finely pounded, watered and exposed to the air. All 

 seeds in it soon germinate and are pulled out as they appear, and, after a time, 

 the manure, cleared of its weeds, is stored in pits for further use. The arrows 

 are collected when the first florets begin to fall or are blown off by the wind, 

 and are kept in paper packages for a week or ten days for the seeds to mature, 



1 Hole. On Some Indian Forest Grasses and their Oncology. Indian Forest Memoir 8, 

 For. BoL Ser. I.- 1, 1911. PI. XXII. 



