HOLE : SOME INDIAN GRASSES AND THEIR CECOLOGY. 65 



B. — Taxonomy. 



51. Hackel (I.e., p. 117) distinguishes two 

 species mainly on the following characters : — 



Saccharum arundinaceum Retz. — Leaves broad linear. Width 2 — 3 cm. (0-8" — 

 1-2"). Mid-rib at base of lamina much narrower than width of lamina. 

 Joints of panicle usually longer than spikelet. Sessile spikelet 3-5 to 4 mm. 

 (0-14" to 0-16") long. 



Saccharum ciliare Anderss. ( = Saccharum Munja Roxb.). — Leaves narrow linear. 

 Width 3 to 6 mm. (0-12" to 0-24"). Mid-rib at base of lamina more than half 

 width of lamina. Joints of panicle shorter than spikelet. Spikelets 

 5—7 mm. (0-2"— 0-28") long. 



Both the above plants havie been combined in the Flora of British India (VII, p. 119) in one 

 species named Saccharum arundinaceum Retz., but a comparison of Plate XIX with fig. 1, 

 Plate XXII, will indicate how distinct these two plants really are, and there can be little 

 doubt that they must be regarded as distinct species. Fig. 1, Plate XXII, is a photograph 

 of a plant of Saccharum arundinaceum Retz. growing in a garden at Dehra Dun which was 

 kindly identified in the first place by Dr. Otto Stapf and which the writer was subsequently 

 able to compare with a co-type in the Herbarium of the British Museum. As indicated in 

 the photograph Saccharum arundinaceum is a plant with strongly hygrophilous characters 

 and it attains gigantic dimensions. The writer has measured culms 24 ft. in length and 

 0-75 in. in diameter and these dimensions are probably exceeded in favourable localities. 

 The leaves are dark green and attain a length of 6 ft. and a width of 2 in. whereas those 

 of Saccharum Munja are glaucous and have never been found to exceed 1 in. in width. 

 The immature leafy culms of Saccharum arundinaceum show a solid mature, basal, piece 

 of culm of 5 — 6 ft. in length terminating in the apical tuft of green leaves, whereas in 

 Saccharum Munja the mature basal portion of the immature culms does not as a rule exceed 

 2 in. The great length of the immature culms gives Saccharum arundinaceum a very 

 distinctive and characteristic appearance, totally unlike that of any other Indian species 

 of Saccharum with the sole exception of the cultivated Sugar-cane, Saccharum ojficinarum. 

 Saccharum arundinaceum is undoubtedly identical with the Saccharum procerum of Rox- 

 burgh and the latter was clearly acquainted with the characteristic habit of the plant 

 since he describes it as coming " nearest in appearance to Saccharum officinarum " 

 (I.e., p. 243). A peculiarity of this plant is that the spikelets (in the specimens §een by the 

 writer the pedicelled spikelets) are sometimes ( ? only in cultivated plants) 2 — 3 flowered 

 and inside glumes III and IV there are in such cases 1 — 2 additional hyaline, paleate, 

 glumes. Retzius (Obs. bot., fasc. IV, p. 14, and fasc. V, p. 16) says that his Saccharum 

 arundinaceum and Saccharum bengalense are practically identical except that the " corolla 

 of the former is often 3-valued and of the latter 2-valved " and there is little doubt that 



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