19 



Where figured. — Buchanan, Duthie, Church, Agricultural Gazette 

 (N.S.W.) ' 



Botanical description (B. Fl., vii., 460). — Erect or ascending, 

 attaining 1 to 2 feet, the Australian specimens glabrous, or rarely 

 with a few long hairs at the base of the leaf -blades. 



Spikes varying from two to five, alternate, spreading, usually distant, 1 to 2, or 

 rarely nearly 3 in. long, the rhachis usually flat, and about 1 line broad, and 

 sometimes minutely pubescent at the base. 



Spilcelets sessile or shortly pedicellate in two close rows, or rarely in part, at least, 

 of the spike, crowded into three or four rows, ovoid-orbicular, obtuse, flat, 

 about 1 line long when in fruit. 



Outer empty glumes thinly membranous, with a prominent midrib, sometimes 

 minutely pubescent. 



Fruiting glume similar in shape but soon hardened, very finely striate, the central 

 nerve visible only in the young state. 



Palea hardened like the flowering glume, the inflected margins dilated at the base 

 into broad hyaline auricles enveloxsing the flower. 



Botanical notes. — "All or nearly all the Australian specimens 

 belong to the variety still distinguished by some as a species under 

 Forster's name orbiculare, usually a more slender plant, with smaller 

 spikelets, the rhachis often pubescent at the base, and the outer 

 glumes scarcely or not at all scrobiculate. The marginal indentures 

 and the intermediate nerves between the midrib and the marginal ones 

 of the typical P. scrobiculatum are chiefly prominent in cultivated 

 varieties." (B. Fl.) 



Value as a fodder. — A long, rather coarse grass, which not only 

 grows on poor land, but also on swampy ground. In warm, moist 

 situations it forms a great bulk of nutritious fodder, but it is coarse 

 and fibrous when old. In tropical climates it sometimes becomes a 

 weed in cultivated land, but it is less noxious in this respect in our 

 climate. It will stand close feeding. Duthie states that it is culti- 

 vated as a rainy-season crop throughout the plains of India and at 

 low elevations on the Himalaya. It is there usually sown on the 

 poorer kinds of soil, and the straw is used as fodder. 



This grass sometimes deleterious. — Cases of poisoning are occasion- 

 ally met with in India through the use of this grain as an article of 

 food. The symptoms are the same as those caused by the European 

 Darnel (Lolium temulentum). According to popular belief there 

 are two kinds, the sweet or non-poisonous, and the poisonous 

 (Dymock) . 



In the same country this grass, called " Hureek," and perhaps 

 identical with GJ-hohona grass, is said to render the milk of cows that 

 graze upon it narcotic and injurious. Rosenthal pronounces it per- 

 nicious perhaps only when long and exclusive use is made of it. A 

 probable cause of the deleterious properties is the liability of the 

 grain to ergotism. 



Fungi recorded on this grass. — Cerebella pasjpalij Cke. and Mass., 

 and Ustilago Gesatii, Waldh. 



