292 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



In the East Indies the doob-grass grows luxuriantly, and is 

 highly valued as food for horses, &c. ; in this climate, however, it 

 scarcely begins to vegetate till the month of June : and the above 

 details shew that its produce and nutritive powers here are not suf- 

 ficiently great to hold out any hope that its valuable properties in 

 the East Indies can be made available in the climate and soil 

 of Britain. 



Sir William Jones, in his Works, vol. ii. p. 58 60, gives a 

 figure of the doob-grass. The essential specific characters of the 

 grass, as exhibited in the figure given by Sir William Jones, and 

 those which our figure present, are precisely the same ; the greater 

 size or luxuriance of growth indicated by the former figure, is 

 clearly the effects of climate, one plant being the produce of the 

 East Indies and the other the growth of England. 



Sir William Jones observes, " That every law-book, and almost 

 every poem, in Sanscrit, contains frequent allusions to the holiness 

 of this plant ; and in the fourth Veda we have the following address 

 to it, at the close of a terrible incantation : ' Thee, O Darbha ! 

 the learned proclaim a Divinity not subject to age or death; thee 

 they call the armour of Indra, the preserver of regions, the de- 

 stroyer of enemies, a gem that gives increase to the fields ; at the 

 time when the ocean resounded, when the clouds murmured and 

 lightnings flashed, then was Darbha produced, pure as a drop of 

 fine gold.' Again, ( May Durva, which rose from the water of 

 life, which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, efface a hun- 

 dred of my sins, and prolong my existence on earth for a hundred 

 years.' " 



The doob-grass flowers in September, and the seed is ripe about 

 the end of October, and sometimes in November. The plants, 

 natives of the English coasts, flower about a month earlier than 

 the above. 



PANICUMviride. Green Panic-grass. Hort. Gram. Fol. 172. 



Specific character: Panicle spiked, cylindrical, continuous, with 

 numerous prominent bristles, rough with erect teeth ; corolla 

 of the perfect floret slightly uneven. Sm. Engl. Fl. i. p. 99. 



Qbs. There is another annual species of panic-grass (Panicum 

 verticillatum), which greatly resembles this one. Mr. Curtis 

 remarks that this species, to correspond with its trivial name, 

 should be always green, but that its foliage is always red, and 

 its spikes a reddish-brown, and that the verticillatum is the 



