DESCKIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 891 



spreading than in the typical Trichoon phragmites the common reed; branches of 

 panicle filiform, pedicels capillary, quite smooth; spikelets when fully expanded- 

 about 12 mm. broad across the glumes, 3 or more flowered, fan-shaped, the first 

 flower often staminate, the others perfect; rachilla articulated between the flowering 

 glumes, long-pilose, the two lower glumes empty; the third glume empty or sub- 

 tending a staminate flower; flowering glumes glabrous, long-acuminate, much 

 exceeding the short palets; stamens 3; styles 2, distinct, short; stigmas plumose; 

 glumes spreading in fruit, exposing the long silky hairs of the rachilla; grain free, 

 loosely inclosed in the glume and palet. This plant is quite variable, and it is possible 

 that it is only a variety of Trichoon phragmites. Hooker could find no important 

 differences between herbarium specimens of the two. In both forms dwarf or slender 

 states occur, with slender leaves and greatly reduced panicles. « The species is spread 

 from Japan and India through Malaysia and the Philippines, and occurs in the 

 Caroline Islands, Bismarck Archipelago, New Caledonia, and other islands of the 

 Pacific, but not in Fiji, Samoa, nor Hawaii. 



In Guam the stems are split and woven into coarse matting for covering the sides 

 of houses (PI. XX), for partitions, and for ceilings, often covered with whitewash or 

 mud, and serving as laths for plastering. It is from this species that the durmamats 

 of Bengal are made. Padre Blanco first described it in the Philippines under the 

 name Arundo tecta. In Japan the young shoots are eaten cooked like asparagus or 

 bamboo sprouts. In China they are taken out of their sheaths and preserved by 

 drying with a coating of salt on them, to be stored for cooking purposes. & This reed 

 is said to have proved poisonous to cattle in India, but in Guam the young shoots are 

 used as fodder and are not considered harmful. In China the banks, marshes, and 

 shoals of the Yangtze River are covered with great beds of it, the people cutting \ 

 down the reeds on the subsidence of the floods. They form the fuel for a large por- 

 tion of the people in certain districts, who also use them for building hovels and '< 

 making mats and hurdles, and eat the young shoots as food. c 

 References: 



Trichoon roxburghii (Kunth). 



Arundo roxburghii Kunth, Rev. Gram. 1 : 79. 1829. 



Phragmites roxburghii (Kunth) Steud. Nom. ed. 2. 2: 324. 1841. 



The earliest post-Linnsean use of the name Phragmites appears to be by Adanson 

 in 1763, but for a different genus from that to which it has been applied by modern 

 authors. Trinius proposed the name for the present genus in 1820, but it is ante- 

 dated by Trichoon, published by Roth in 1798. The common reed, Trichoon phrag- 

 mites (Arundo phragmites of Linnaeus), is widely known under the name Phragmites 

 communis Trin. 



Triphasia aurantiola Lour. Same as Triphasia trifoliata. 



Triphasia trifoliata. Orange-berry. 



Family Rutaceae. 



Local names. — Lemoncito, Limon de China (Guam); Limoncitos (Philippines; 

 Lime myrtle (West Indies) ; Limeberry (East Indies). 



A glabrous, spiny shrub, with evergreen branches and leaves, small fragrant white 

 flowers, and orange-red berries about the size of a cherry. Leaves alternate, sessile, 

 3-foliate; leaflets obtuse, thick and soft, crenulate, coriaceous, almost nerveless, the 

 terminal one shortly petioled, 2 to 4 cm. long, ovate, with a cuneate base and rounded 

 notched tip; lateral ones smaller, more rounded, oblique; flowers very shortly 

 peduncled, axillary, solitary or in 3-flowered cymes; calyx 3-lobed; petals 3, free, 

 imbricate, linear-oblong; stamens 6, inserted around a fleshy disk; ovary ovoid, 



a Hooker, Flora British India, vol. 7, pp. 304, 305, 1897. 



h See Useful Plants of Japan, Agricultural Society of Japan, p. 29, 1895. 



c Smith, Materia medica, etc., of China, p. 171, 1871. 



