19 
Where jfigured—Buchanan, Duthie, Church, Agricultwral Gazette 
(N.S.W.) 
Botanical description (B. FL, vu., 460).—Erect or ascendig, 
attaining 1 to 2 feet, the Australian specimens glabrous, or rarely 
with a few long hairs at the base of the leaf-blades. 
Spikes varying from two to five, alternate, spreading, usually distant, 1 to 2, or 
rarely nearly 3 in. long, the rhachis usually flat, and about 1 line broad, and 
sometimes minutely pubescent at the base. 
Spikelets sessile or shortly pedicellate in two close rows, or rarely in part, at least, 
of the spike, crowded into three or four rows, ovoid-orbicular, obtuse, flat, 
about | line long when in fruit. 
Outer empty glumes thinly membranous, with a prominent midrib, sometimes 
minutely pubescent. 
Fruiting glume similar in shape but soon hardened, very finely striate, the central 
nerve visible only in the young state. 
Palea hardened like the flowering glume, the inflected margins dilated at the base 
into broad hyaline auricles enveloping the flower. 
Botanical notes.—* All or nearly all the Australian specimens 
belong to the variety still distinguished by some as a species under 
Forster’s name orbiculare, usually a more slender plant, with smaller 
spikelets, the rhachis often pubescent at the base, and the outer 
glumes scarcely or not at all scrobiculate. ‘The marginal indentures 
and the intermediate nerves between the midrib and the marginal ones 
of the typical P. scrobiculatwm are chiefly prominent in cultivated 
varieties.” (B. F'l.) 
Value as a fodder.—A long, rather coarse grass, which not only 
grows on poor land, but also on swampy ground. In warm, moist 
situations 1t forms a great bulk of nutritious fodder, but it is coarse 
and fibrous when old. In tropical climates it sometimes becomes a 
weed in cultivated land, but it is less noxious in this respect im our 
climate. It will stand close feeding. Duthie states that it is culti- 
vated as a rainy-season crop throughout the plains of India and at 
low elevations on the Himalaya. It is there usually sown on the 
poorer kinds of soil, and the straw is used as fodder. 
This grass sometimes deleteriows.—Cases of poisoning are occasion- 
ally met with in India through the use of this grain as an article of 
food. The symptoms are the same as those caused by the Huropean 
Darnel (Loliwm temulentwm). According to popular belief there 
are two kinds, the sweet or non-poisonous, and the poisonous 
(Dymock). 
In the same country this grass, called “ Hureek,’ and perhaps 
identical with Ghohona grass, is said to render the milk of cows that 
graze upon it narcotic and injurious. Rosenthal pronounces it per- 
nicious perhaps only when long and exclusive use is made of it. A 
probable cause of the deleterious properties is the liability of the 
grain to ergotism. 
Fungi recorded on this grass.—Cerebella paspali, Cke. and Mass., 
and Ustilago Cesatii, Waldh. . 
