400 USFFUL PLANTS OF GDAM. 



ers abandoned clearings on many islands; but it is much taller and its l-flowered 

 spikelets are awned and are borne in a spreading panicle, while those of Imperata 

 are not awned and are in a silvery cylindrical thyrsus with dark anthers and stigmas. 



The species is widely spread throughout the islands or the Pacific. It has been 

 confused by Hackel with the closely allied northern species Xipheaffrostis japontca. 



Its identity was first established by Warburg. « Distribution: from Java through 

 Malaysia to Polynesia and Formosa. 



In Guam this grass is sometimes used for thatching, and is more durable than 

 either coconut or nipa thatch. A roof of coconut thatch will last four years; one oi 

 nipa-palm leaflets will last from ten to twelve years; and one of neti will last longer than 

 this, b In other islands of the Pacific it is also used for thatch, especially in Fiji, Samoa, 

 and Earotonga; and some of the Malanesians harden the straight light stems and use 

 them as shafts for their arrows. On the island of Guam large areas of ' ' neti "are fre- 

 quently burned by hunters to drive out the deer which take refuge in them. The 

 young shoots which spring up are eaten by deer, cattle, and buffaloes, but when it is 

 fully grown it is too rough for fodder. The minute teeth which arm the margins oi 

 the leaves make them very sharp; and one is almost certain to be cut on the face oi 

 hands in passing through a thicket of this grass. It is on this account that the 

 English-speaking inhabitants of the island call it "sword-grass." 

 References: 



Xiphagroslis floridula (Labill. ) Coville. 



Saccharmn flmidvlum. Labill. Sert. Austr. Caled. 13. t. 18. 1824. 

 Miscanthus floridulus Warb.; K". Sch. & L,aut. Fl. Deutsch. Schutzgebiet. indei 

 Sudsee 166. 1901. 



The first species and type of the genus Miscanthus, established by Andersson in 1856, 

 is J/, capettsis, a species which is not congeneric with those referred to the genus bj 

 later authors. The plants commonly included under INIiscanthus are therefore lefl 

 without a valid generic designation, and the name Xiphagrostis (ii(poi, sword, anil 

 aypoodTii, grass) is here proposed, the type species being floridulus, the citation tc 

 the original description of which is given above. Another well-known grass of the 

 same genus, in frequent cultivation under the name Eulalia japmiica, becomes 

 Xiphagrostis japonica (Thunb. ) Coville {Saccharum japonicum Thunb., Eulalic 

 japonica Trin., Miscanthus sitiensis Anders.). — Frederick V. Coville. 

 Xylocarpus granatum. Cannon-ball tkee. < 



Family ]Meliaceae. 



Local names. — Laldnyog, Laldnyog (Guam); Kaliunpag-sa-lati, Libato-pula 

 (Philippmes); Dabi (Fiji). 



A glabrous, evergreen, littoral tree, with a large, hard, brown, irregularly globose 

 fruit with a thin rind, containing 6 to 12 large, angular, hard, corky seeds. Leaves 

 alternate, pinnate, 2 to 6-foliate; leaflets stiff, opposite, entire, ovate or obovate 

 usually obtuse, very shortly petiolulate; panicles lax, axillary; flowers small, sweet 

 scented, yellowish or white, hermaphrodite, sometimes in simple racemes; calyj 

 ■1-fid, short; petals 4, reflexed, contorted sinistrosely ; stamens united into an urceolate 

 globose tube which is 8-toothed at apex, the teeth bipartite; anthers 8, 2-celled, jus 

 included, sessile at top of tube, alternating with the teeth; style short; stigma dis 

 coid; ovary 4-celled, 4-sulcate; cells 2 to S-ovuled; pericarp fleshy, dehiscing by ■ 

 valves opposite the obliterated di^epiments. 



A tree widely spread on tropical shores, common in India and Ceylon, the Malai 

 -irchipelago, North Australia, and on many islands of the Pacific. The astringen 



" See Schumann und Lauterbach, Die Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in de 

 Sudsee, pp. 166, 167, 1901. 



>> MS. notes furniiied me by Don Justo Dungea, late justice of the peace of thi 

 island of Guam, and one of the principal coconut planters of the island. 



■^Trimen, Handbook Flora of Ceylon, vol. 1, p. 251, 1893. 



