Chap. 10.J DIFFERENT KINDS OF GBAIN. 21 



blade ; this last flowers, too, before the other grain. In the 

 cereals in general it is the thicker end of the seed that throws 

 out the root, the thinner end the blossom ; while in the other 

 seeds both root and blossom issue from the same part. 



During the winter, corn is in the blade ; but in the spring 

 winter corn throws out a tall stem. As for millet and panic, 

 they grow with a jointed and grooved 4 stalk, while sesame has 

 a stem resembling that of fennel-giant. The fruit of all these 

 seeds is either contained in an ear, as in wheat and barley, for 

 instance, and protected from the attacks of birds and small 

 animals by a prickly beard bristling like so many palisades ; or 

 else it is enclosed in pods, as in the leguminous plants, or in 

 capsules, as in sesame and the poppy. Millet and panic can 

 only be said to belong to the grower and the small birds in 

 common, as they have nothing but a thin membrane to cover 

 them, without the slightest protection. Panic receives that 

 name from the panicule 5 or down that is to be seen upon it; 

 the head of it droops languidly, and the stalk tapers gra- 

 dually in thickness, being of almost the toughness and con- 

 sistency of wood : the head is loaded with grain closely packed, 

 there being a tuft upon the top, nearly a foot in length. In 

 millet the husks which embrace the grain bend downward with 

 a wavy tuft upon the edge. There are several varieties of 

 panic, the mammose, for instance, the ears of which are in 

 clusters with small edgings of down, the head of the plant 

 being double ; it is distinguished also according to the colour, 

 the white, for instance, the black, the red, and the purple 

 even. Several kinds of bread are made from millet, but very 

 little from panic : there is no grain known that weighs heavier 

 than millet, and which swells more in baking, A modius of 

 millet will yield sixty pounds' weight of bread; and three 

 sextarii steeped in water will make one modius of ferraenty. 6 

 A kind of millet 7 has been introduced from India into Italy 

 within the last ten years, of a swarthy colour, large grain, and a 



4 This is certainly the fact, as Fee says, but it is the same with all the 

 graminea. 



3 A characteristic of the Panicuin miliaceum in particular. 



6 Or porridge; "puls." 



7 It has been suggested that this was maize, but that is indigenous to 

 South America. Fee has little doubt that it is the Holcus sorgho of Lin- 

 naeus, the *' Indian millet," that is meant. 



