PANICS^ 



185 



in some varieties are compound and more or 

 less lobed. In this country millet is grown 

 for forage but in some 

 parts of the Old World 

 the seed is used for 

 human food. (Setaria 

 Beauv.) 



Chsetochloa italica (L.) 

 Scribn. {Setaria italica Beauv. ; 

 Panicum italicum 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, ciUate 

 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 J/^ 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. 

 Fig. 25. Chaeto- 7_nerved, the sterile lemma similar to the second 



chloa italica, com- ' 



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

 esc^ence, 2. rui , articulating above the sterile lemma, round on one 



Fig. 24. Chse- 

 tochloa italica, 

 Hungarian grass. 

 Inflorescence, 



