MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 61? 



trial and distribution of economic plants When the plant once gets & 



hold on the soil, it covers the ground very thickly with self-sown seeds, which 

 are produced in abundance." 



(7) Atriplex vesicnria. A bushy shrub, Central and South-Easte-R 

 Australia. According to Mueller, " one of th© most fattening and most 

 felished of all the dwarf pastoral salt-bushbS of Australia, holding out 

 in the utmost extremes of drought, and not scorched even by sirocco-like 

 blasts. Its vast abundance over extensive salt'bush plains of the Australian 

 interior to the exclusion of almost every other bush except A. halimoides 

 indicates the facility with which this species disseminates itself. Splendid 

 wool is produced in regions where A. vesicaria and A. halimoides almost 

 monopolise the ground for enormous stretches. With other woody species 

 it is also easily multiplied from cuttings, but, as remarked by Naudin, it 

 produces thousands of fruits in less than three months after sowing, and 

 as stated by Millardet it has become (of late years since its introduction) the 

 marvel of the Delta of the Rhone, in the south of France." 



(8) Kochia eriantha. A stout shrub with the branches covered with woolly 

 tomentum : " an excellent fodder herb for sheep on the hot and dry pastures 

 of Central Australia, where the temperature in summer reaches 120° F. in the 

 shade, and in the winter falls to 27°." 



(0) Kochia pyramidata. Prof. W. A. Dixon found '65 per cent, of digestible 

 substance in this plant. 



(10) Kochia villosa. An under-shrub found in most of the depressed and 

 saline regions of Australia, particularly inland, also on sand lands. According 

 to Mueller, " renowned amongst occupiers of pasture runs as the cotton bush, 

 so called on account of the downy covering on the branches and leaves. This 

 rather dwarf shrub resists the extremes of drought and heat of even the trying 

 Central Australian climate. The roots sometimes penetrate into the ground to 

 a depth of 18 feet. With all other animals, dromedaries like this and some 

 other salt-bushes, particularly for food. These plants can be readily multi- 

 plied from cuttings." 



(11) Rhagodia paralolica. This shrub is found in the interior of Queens- 

 land, New South Wales, and South Australia, and usually in or near moist 

 places, but is nowhere very plentiful. It i? probably one of the best known 

 of all salt-bushes by stockmen, and on account of its mealy-white appearance 

 they have given it the common name of " old man salt-bush." At one <ime 

 this shrub was a prominent feature in many places in the interior, but of late 

 years it is gradually becoming more scarce. 



4. From the above it appears that there exist a large variety of drought- 

 resisting fodder plants, some of them specially suited to soils impregnated with 

 alkaline salts. Will any of these suit the soil and climate of India ? Experi- 

 ments have been made in India with regard to (1) Pentzia virgata, or Cape 

 sheep-bush ; and four varieties of Australian salt-bush, including (2) Atripha 

 nummularia,Mx^{i) Atriplex halimoides. In 1883, seeds of the Cape sheer>- 

 27 



