PANICS^ 



185 



in some varieties are compound and more or 

 less lobed. In this country millet is grown 



for forage but in some 

 I parts of the Old World 



the seed is used for 



human food. (Setaria 



Beauv.) 



Chaetochloa italica (L.) 

 Scribn. (Setaria italica Beauv. ; 

 Panicum iialicum L.) (Figs. 

 24 and 25). Millet. Foxtail 

 millet. Hungarian grass. 

 Annual; culms erect, simple 

 or nearly so, 2 to 4 feet high, 

 or sometimes larger, glabrous 

 or scabrous below the pani- 

 cle; sheaths glabrous, ciliate 

 on the margins and pubes- 

 cent at the collar; ligule a 

 densely ciliate ring 1 to 2 

 mm. long; blades flat, sca- 

 brous, narrowed below and toward 

 the apex, 6 to 18 inches long, as 

 much as an inch wide; panicle 

 dense, cylindrical, erect or in the 

 larger forms drooping at the apex, 

 from an inch or two to as much as a foot in 

 length and from 3^ inch to 2 inches in diameter, 

 continuous or lobed and interrupted, yellow or 

 purple, bearing bristles as long as the spikelets or 

 much exceeding them; rachis and branches villous; 

 spikelets about 3 mm. long, the bristles from 1 

 to several times the length of the spikelet, the first 

 glume ovate, 3-nerved, about 1 mm. long, the 

 second glume a httle shorter than the spikelet, 

 chba^'itaUcai^com" 7-nerved, the sterile lemma similar to the second 

 mon millet, inflor- glume, as long as the spikelet; fruit easily dis- 

 X5. ' ^' ' articulating above the sterile lemma, round on one 



Fig. 24. Chae- 

 tochloa _ italica, 

 Hungarian grass. 

 Inflorescence, 



