NOTES ON GRASSES GROWING IN CTSfTLON. 



s 



of square miles. In that quarter of the province agricultural labour is, 

 owing to the absence of irrigation and the precarious outturn of pro- 

 duce, far below the normal level in the south Jumna districts, and is 

 unable in consequence to compete with the ravages of the hans weed, 

 whicli requires nothing so much as hard manual labour to remove it," 



140. Sacciiarum arundinaceum, Rett. S. (kemonum 

 Konig. This is the Banibuk of the Sinhalese, and is quite 

 common, and I feel confident indigenous to Ceylon, on the 

 banks of streams and rivers from the coast up to the Kanclyan 

 country, and much cultivated as a fence-plant in Colombo. 

 From this grass, I feel confident, that Eambukkaua and Ram- 

 bukenny have been derived. It is the Pey-Karambu, or 

 Devil's sugar-cane of the Tamils, and hence Konig's S. 

 diemonum. I have measured a culm of this grass in flower 

 in Colombo some years ago, whicli was 20J feet in height. 

 Some of the juice of this plant, and bits of the bark of Hal- 

 gab a, are put into the toddy intended for jaggery. " With 

 this very lofty grass the natives make roofs for their houses, 

 rafts for crossing rivers, railings for their enclosures, and biers 

 to carry dead bodies." Ainslie. 



141. Sacciiarum OFFiciNARUM, Linn. Of the sugar-cane 

 several varieties are cultivated in Ceylon, and large quantities 

 are grown in the clayey fields near Colombo, and brought into 

 town to be cut up into small bits which are chewed and 

 sucked by the natives. Experiments made in several parts of 

 the Island to cultivate this cane for sugar manufacture have 

 proved failures, except the one at Baddegama near Galle 

 where the Messrs. Winter and Bowman manufacture sugar 

 which supplies the shipping at Galle to a certain extent. 



142. Saccharum, Sp. Elephant Sugar Cane. I give this 

 on the authority of a list sent to me by Mr. Morris of foreign 

 grasses introduced to Ceylon. [I learn from Dr. Trimen that 

 this should have been included in 14 L] 



