366 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL mSTORY SOCIETY. 1892. 



(Roxb.), Arugam-pillai Tamil (Eoxb.). In some other parts of 

 India it is known by the name of Buhra dub ; Nili dub, Bam ghas, 

 Khahbar (Duthie). 



Stem perennial, prostrate, often creeping and rooting to a great 

 extent, the flowering branches shortly ascending. Leaves short, 

 rigid, distichous. Spikes 2 — 5, sometimes 6-8, digitate, at the 

 end of a long peduncle, slender, often purplish, 1 — 1^ inches long. 

 Spikelets, linear, smooth, sessile. Outer glumes narrow, acute, 

 pointed, persistent, keeled, nearly equal, less than a line long. 

 Flowering glume rather longer and broader, boat-shaped, the keel 

 minutely ciliate, hardening when in fruit, and smooth on the sides. 



It is abundant everywhere in this and other Provinces of India. 

 It is said to be rare in very sandy parts of the Western Punjab and 

 in the black soil of Central India. Grows also in Ceylon and over a 

 greater part of the world. It is found in England, though rare, and 

 other parts of Europe, abundant in the western slopes of the Andes, 

 China, Thibet, South and Central America, and the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and according to Birdwood is said to be introduced into Farz 

 and Khuzistan by the British Expedition of 1856-57. It is con 

 sidered to be the best and most nutritious fodder grass for cattle- 

 especially for horses, in India, Ceylon, in the United States of 

 America, and in Australia, In the settled parts of the latter country 

 it is now generally spread, R. Brown suggests that it may have 

 been introduced with cultivation. It varies considerably in habit as 

 well as in its nutritious properties. It makes excellent hay, and will 

 keep good in stock for many years. Mr. Fergusson says : — ''' Its 

 flowers in their perfect state are among the loveliest objects in the 

 vegetable world, and appear, through a lens, like minute rubies 

 and emeralds in constant motion from the least breath of air. It is 

 the sweetest and most nutritious pasture for cattle ; and its useful- 

 ness added to its beauty, induced the Hindus, in their earliest ages, 

 to believe that it was the mansion of a benevolent nymph. Even 

 the Veda celebrates it as in the following text of the A't'hdrvana : 

 " May Durva, which rose from the water of life, which has a hundred 

 roots and a hundred stems, eSace a hundred of my sins, and prolong 

 my existence on earth for a hundred years.'^ It is also sacred to 

 Ganesha. Durva and Doorba must not be confounded with Darbha 



