GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 23 
Seed-time : July to August to September; when cut for hay crop, 
both blooming and seeding time may be retarded. 
Range: Southern part of United States to latitude of Tennessee, 
westward to California, and along Pacific Coast to Oregon and 
Washington. 
Habitat: Fields, meadows, waste places. 
About 1830 there came to Governor Means, of South Carolina, a 
message from the Sultan of Turkey, requesting that an instructor in 
the art of raising cotton be sent to the Ottoman Empire. Two or 
three years later, when the instructor returned, he brought with 
him the seeds of a number of plants that seemed to him to be of 
economic value, and among them was this grass. An Alabama 
planter, Colonel William Johnson, while on a visit to South Caro- 
lina, became interested in the new plant, obtained a quantity of 
seed, and raised it extensively on his plantation in the fertile bottom 
lands of the Alabama River. Since then it has spread over about 
half of the United States, and but for the fact that it is a tropical 
plant, likely to be winterkilled where the ground freezes to any 
depth, it might have possessed the land to a much greater extent. 
And, once established, it is almost impossible to control it because 
of its deep-running, branching rootstocks. Added to the difficulty 
of control is the fact that, like all the Sorghums, the plant occasion- 
ally develops a poisonous quality, due to the presence of hydrocyanic 
acid. Complaints of the deaths of cattle and horses from this cause 
come mostly from the Pacific Coast, where the growth of the grass. 
on irrigated ground is especially rank. In India, where the plant 
is much used as fodder for cattle, it has been noted that deaths 
frequently occur when, because of the failure of rain, plants that 
have reached a good size become wilted. When a rainfall comes, 
the poisonous principle disappears; just what condition develops 
it is not known. 
Culms large and stout, about a half-inch thick at base, and ordi- 
narily five or six feet tall but may reach a height of eight or nine 
feet; pith filled with sugary juice. Sheaths smooth; leaves a foot 
or more long, about an inch wide, smooth, and flat. Panicles very 
large and loose, the branches whorled and spreading, naked at base ; 
spikelets in groups of three, the central one sessile and fertile, some- 
times bearing an awn, usually bent, the glume purplish, covered 
