400 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



ers abandoned clearings on many islands; but it is much taller and its 1-flowered 

 spikelets are awned and are borne in a spreading panicle, while those of Imperata 

 are not awned and are in a silvery cylindrical thyrsus with dark anthers and stigmas. 



The species is widely spread throughout the islands or the Pacific. It has been 

 confused by Hackel with the closely allied northern species Xipheagrostis japonica. 



Its identity was first established by Warburg. Distribution: from Java through 

 Malaysia to Polynesia and Formosa. 



In Guam this grass is sometimes used for thatching, and is more durable than 

 either coconut or nipa thatch. A roof of coconut thatch will last four years; one of 

 nipa-palm leaflets will last from ten to twelve years; and one of neti will last longer than 

 this. 6 In other islands of the Pacific it is also used for thatch, especially in Fiji, Samoa, 

 and Rarotonga; arid some of the Malanesians harden the straight light stems and use 

 them as shafts for their arrows. On the island of Guam large areas of " neti" are fre- 

 quently burned by hunters to drive out the deer which take refuge in them. The 

 young shoots which spring up are eaten by deer, cattle, and buffaloes, but when it is 

 fully grown it is too rough for fodder. The minute teeth which arm the margins of 

 the leaves make them very sharp; and one is almost certain to be cut on the face or 

 hands in passing through a thicket of this grass. It is on this account that the 

 English-speaking inhabitants of the island call it "sword-grass." 

 REFERENCES: 



Xiphagrostis floridula (Labill.) Coville. 



Saccharum floridulum Labill. Sert. Austr. Caled. 13. t. 18, 1824. 

 Miscanthus jftoridulus Warb.; K. Sch. & Laut. Fl. Deutsch. Schutzgebiet. in der 

 Sudsee 166. 1901. 



The first species and type of the genus Miscanthus, established by Andersson in 1856, 

 is M. capensis, a species which is not congeneric with those referred to the genus by 

 later authors. The plants commonly included under Miscanthus are therefore left 

 without a valid generic designation, and the name Xiphagrostis (&(po$, sword, and 

 aypGodng, grass) is here proposed, the type species being floridulm, the citation to 

 the original description of which is given above. Another well-known grass of the 

 same genus, in frequent cultivation under the name Eulalia japonica, becomes 

 Xiphagrostis japonica (Thunb.) Coville (Saccharum japonicum Thunb., Eulalia 

 japonica Trin., Miscanthus sinensis Anders.). Frederick V. Coville. 

 Xylocarpus granatum. CANNON-BALL TREE, c 



Family Meliaceae. 



LOCAL NAMES. Lalanyog, Laldnyog (Guam); Kaliunpag-sa-lati, Libato-pula 

 (Philippines); Dabi (Fiji). 



A glabrous, evergreen, littoral tree, with a large, hard, brown, irregularly globose 

 fruit with a thin rind, containing 6 to 12 large, angular, hard, corky seeds. Leaves 

 alternate, pinnate, 2 to 6-foliate; leaflets stiff, opposite, entire, ovate or obovate, 

 usually obtuse, very shortly petiolulate; panicles lax, axillary; flowers small, sweet- 

 scented, yellowish or white, hermaphrodite, sometimes in simple racemes; calyx 

 4-fid, short; petals 4, reflexed, contorted sinistrosely ; stamens united into an urceolate- 

 globose tube which is 8-toothed at apex, the teeth bipartite; anthers 8, 2-celled, just 

 included, sessile at top of tube, alternating with the teeth; style short; stigma dis- 

 coid; ovary 4-celled, 4-sulcate; cells 2 to 8-ovuled; pericarp fleshy, dehiscing by 4 

 valves opposite the obliterated dissepiments. 



A tree widely spread on tropical shores, common in India and Ceylon, the Malay 

 Archipelago, North Australia, and on many islands of the Pacific. The astringent 



a See Schumann und Lauterbach, Die Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in der 

 Sudsee, pp. 166, 167, 1901. 



& MS. notes furnished me by Don Justo Dungca, late justice of the peace of the 

 island of Guam, and one of the principal coconut planters of the island. 



c Trimen, Handbook Flora of Ceylon, vol. 1, p. 251, 1893. 



