PANICUM. 103 



toil they have to take in freeing them from the husks. 

 Even game do not despise the seed, and it may be well 

 worth the care of gamekeepers to have it collected by 

 children for winter food when corn is dear. 



The Spreading Millet grows abundantly in moist 

 shady woods in Great Britain, Lapland, Norway, Swe- 

 den, the United States, and North America. Its culms 

 remain standing through the following winter, unless 

 broken down by storms ; and they form as beautiful ob- 

 jects glittering with the starry gems of the hoar-frost, 

 as when trembling in the summer breeze, and shaking 

 the dewdrops from their delicate florets. 



The foreign grasses usually known as Millets belong 

 to the next genus. 



Genus III. PANICUM. 



Gen. Char. Inflorescence panicled, panicle compact or 

 spike-like, or more or less spreading ; spikelets small, naked 

 or awned, one-flowered, or at any rate only containing oue 

 perfect flower ; outer glumes generally three, the first mi- 

 nute, the second larger and empty, the third containing a 

 male or neuter floret, or else empty ; flowering glume con- 

 cave, embracing with its margins the palea, which like itself 

 is cartilaginous and glossy, and of similar shape, but rather 

 flatter and with two slight ribs; scales minute, inflated; 

 ovary roundish ; seed solitary, invested with the flowering 

 glume and palea, flattened at one side. 



1. Panicum sanguinale, Linn. Fingered Panicum. 



(Digitaria, Brit. Fl.) 

 Root annual, fibrous ; stems numerous, ascending, 

 branched, slender, hollow, ribbed, glossy ; leaves flat, some- 

 what hairy ; sheaths hairy ; ligula prominent, especially in 

 the upper sheath, rounded, and with hairs at the base : 



