80 
thrive and be at home, furnishing at the time of the year, when other 
fodder is scarce, food for the animals employed on the sugar estates. 
If cut shortly after it flowers, just as the fruit is setting, it forms 
valuable food for horses, cattle, and mules, who then seem to eat it 
with relish, but if it is allowed to get over-ripe the stems become hard 
and unpalatable, the animals then only eating the leaves and tender 
parts, unless it is chaffed up and given them with the addition of oil- 
cake and molasses. It is propagated by root-cuttimgs, the cuttings 
being placed in holes about 1 foot apart each way, when it soon 
spreads, covering the whole surface of the land. It goes on ratoon- 
ing for many years, giving two and sometimes three cuttings annually. 
The yield varies with the soil, rainfall, and manurial treatment, but 
the average yield, without manure, may be set down from 5 to 7 tons 
per acre per annum. With the application of manure the yield is 
greatly increased, an acre then giving from 10 to 12 tons of fodder 
yearly.” (Kew Bulletin, September, 1895.) 
Habitat and range.—Occurs in South Australia, Victoria and Queens- 
land, as well as our own Colony. With us it is very widely diffused, 
extending over most parts of the Colony. It is also found in tropical 
Asia. 
7. Andropogon intermedius, R.Br. 
Botanical name.—Intermedius—Latin, between, in allusion to its 
affinities with A. ischemum and A. pertusum, which causes it to be 
intermediate, in some respects, between these species. 
Synonym.—A. punctatus, Roxb., in Mueller’s Census. 
Where figured.— Agricultural Gazette. 
Botanical description (B. F1., vii, 531).—An erect grass of 2 feet or 
more, with the narrow leaves and general habit of A. ischeamum, the 
nodes varying with or without beards. 
Spikes slender, 1 to 14 inches long, usually numerous, all shortly pedicellate in an 
oblong terminal panicle of 3 or 4 inches without sheathing bracts ; the common 
Rhachis glabrous and always more or less elongated, the pedicels and base of the 
sessile spikelets more or less ciliate. 
Spikelets under 2 lines long, narrow and acute or scarcely obtuse, and often purplish, 
as in A. ischemum. 
Outer glume often, but not always even in the same spike, marked with a dorsal pit, 
as in A. pertusus. 
Awn small and slender. 
Pedicellate spikelet more developed than in A. ischemum, and often enclosing a male 
flower. 
Botanical notes—Outer glume often, but not always even in the 
same spike, marked with a dorsal pit, as in A. pertusus. This is 
alluded to in the synonymic name (A. punctatus) of A. intermedius. 
Value as a fodder.—A rather coarse grass which yields, when young, 
a large quantity of nutritious fodder. It has been recommended by 
Bailey for planting river sides. 
Habitat and range.—Found in all the Colonies except Tasmania. 
Is said to be common on springy land on the borders of rivers in 
Queensland. In ourown Colony it does not appear to be very common. 
It occurs from the tableland to the interior. It is also found in Asia. 
