AND OTHER FORAGE PLANTS. 123 



By scarifying and applying fertilizers his crops would be very 

 much heavier, but perhaps not so choice from being coarser. 



EUOHLCENA LUXURIANS, Teosinte, or Guatemala Grass. 



Within a few years this large and very beautiful tropical 

 grass has been introduced into the south of France, the Royal 

 Gardens, Kew, England, and thence into the East and West 

 Indies, Australia, Tropical and South Africa, Cyprus, the Ba- 

 hamas etc., and later into various parts of the United States. 



It is specially interesting as allied to, and in some respects 

 closely resembling Indian corn. It has the male flowers in a 

 tassel at the top of the stalk, and pistillate at the joints like 

 corn, the latter, or the seed inclosed in a loose involucre and ar- 

 ranged on a slendei spike, as wa sometimes see also in the In- 

 dian corn ; though the now recognized normal arrangement of the 

 latter seems to be in lines on a cob as though the many single 

 slender spikes were consolidated into a large compound one; 

 yet so often found variously forked or branched and many 

 spiked (and we have seen one variety with every grain enclosed 

 in its own separate shuck or husk), as to suggest a tendency to 

 return to an earlier arrangement more in harmony with teosinte. 

 It tillers enormously ; and in one or more varieties of Indian 

 corn we find a decidedly singular tendency, though not so 

 strongly manifested. 



It has many large blades and the stalks grow from six to fif- 

 teen feet high. Experiments made by the chemist of the Dept. 

 of Agriculture show that the stalks contain a large quantity of 

 sugar. 



Prof. Asa Gray, in the American Agriculturist for August, 

 1880, speaking 'of this plant, writes : "The Director of the Bo- 

 tanic Garden and Government Plantations at Adelaide, S. Aus- 

 tralia, reports favorably of this strong growing, corn-like forage 

 plant, the EuchlcEna luxurians ; that the prevailing dryness did 

 not injure the plants, which preserved their healthy green, 

 vrhile the blades of the other grasses suffered materially. The 

 habit of throwing out young shoots is remarkable, 60 or 80 ri- 

 sing to a height of 5 or 6 feet. Further north, at Palmerston, 

 (nearer the equator), in th'e course of 5 or 6 months, the plant 

 reached the height of twelve to fourteen feet, and the stems on 

 one plant numbered 56. The plants, after mowing down, grew 

 again several feet in a few days. The cattle delight in it in a 

 fresh state ; also when dry. Undoubtedly there is not a more 

 prolific forage plant known ; but, as it is essentially tropical in 

 its habits, this luxuriant growth is found, in tropical or subtrop- 

 ical climates. The chief drawback to its culture with us will 

 be that the ripening of the seed crop will be problematical, as 

 early frosts will kill the plant. To make the Teosinte a most 

 useful plant in Texas and along our whole south-western bor- 



