32 CHAPTER IV 



cultivation of this variety is now confined to specimens preserved in botanic 

 gardens. The variety 5. sinense is due to Roxburgh,^ who, however, did 

 not regard it as a variety, but as a distinct species. He based the distinction 

 as lying in the decompound and super-decompound branches of the panicle, 

 as opposed to the simple and compound branches of 5. officinarum. A 

 second difference on which he did not lay so much stress is the possession 

 of a small inner scale or valve in the corol. This variety or species was sent 

 from China to Calcutta by Mr. A. Duncan in 1796, and was once grown to 

 some extent in India. It is now apparently lost or merged in other 

 varieties. 



Roxburgh's original drawing of S. sinense, or a very early copy thereof, 

 is to be seen in the Kew Herbarium, 



The term " Chinese cane " has been applied to this variety, and also 

 to the Sorghum, another sugar-producing grass. 



In this chapter variety is used in the sense of members of the same species, 

 such members being capable of recognition by certain characteristics, 

 which are maintained indefinitely when the variety is propagated asexually. 



A variety of any plant, when once established, may be propagated 

 sexually through seed, or asexually through cuttings. When propagated 

 sexually, the seedlings may come true to seed, as is generally the case with 

 many grasses such as wheat, barley, oats and rice. With the cane, however, 

 every seedling is distinguishable from any other and thus forms a new 

 variety. If, however, a variety of the sugar cane is propagated asexually 

 by cuttings, the descendants show very little tendency towards variation. 

 In fact the term descendant is barely proper since the life of the plant is con- 

 tinuous, and the millions of stalks that may arise in a few years from a single 

 original cutting may be regarded as obtained by a process of layering. 



Sexual Variation in the Cane. — The earliest reference to the flowering 

 of the cane is to be found in Rumph,^ who writes " Flores semenque nunquam 

 prosert, nisi per aliquot annos stetent in loco saxoso, tumque panicula 

 ingens arundinacea suprius excressit." This statement, however, seems to 

 refer to the tasseling or arrowing of the cane, and not to the fertility of the 

 seed, as is generally stated. Similarly, it has been stated that Bruce,' 

 the African explorer, saw seedlings in Abyssinia, but his statement reads : 

 " I apprehend that they [i.e., the sugar cane] were originally a plant of the 

 old continent and transplanted to the new upon its first discovery, because 

 here in Egypt they grow from seed." The context shows that this statement 

 was made with reference to Latitude 29°, and he does not state that he had 

 actually seen seedlings, but apparently reports from hearsay. 



Not many years later, Cossigny^ had stated that the cane bore fertile 

 seed, and had recommended to the French Government that experiments 

 be made in Mauritius with the object of obtaining new varieties by seminal 

 variation. 



The earliest analysis of the cane flower is perhaps that due to Peterkin^ 

 (1789), which is, however, very imperfect. He assumed the fertility of the 

 cane without giving any evidence therefor. Later descriptions were given 

 by Dutroneio (1790), Tussac^ (1808), Bonpland^i (1815), Macfaydeni^ (1832) 

 and Schacht^^ (1859), whose description is the most detailed. No one of 

 these writers saw or obtained seedlings, and Tussac, who repeatedly tried 

 to obtain them, surmises that the cane had lost its fertility by having been 

 propagated for many generations asexually. The fertility of the cane was 



