NOTES ON GRASSES GROWING IN CEYLON, 



7 



155. Cynodon Dactylon, Fcrs. This is the famous Hur- 

 yalee of the Deccan, and the Ariigam-plllu of the Tamils in 

 Southern India and Ceylon. It is the grass supposed to be the 

 best fodder of the indigenous ones, and is invariably selected 

 by the grass women who may be seen all over Colombo scrap- 

 ing the whole plant from the roadsides and swards, to the very 

 great injury of both, as it is one of the best grasses for binding 

 the roadsides, and for forming swards. It is quite common 

 everywhere in Ceylon, from the sea-coast up to the plains of 

 Nuwara Biiya. It is the Panieum Dactylon, Linn., Agrostis 

 linearis, Betz. and has been described under about a dozen 

 other names. It seems to be common over a great part of the 

 world. It is found in England, and other parts of Europe, 

 India, China, Thibet, Australia, South and Central America, 

 and the Cape of Good Hope, and said to have been introduced 

 into Farz and Khuzistan, by the British Expedition of 1856-7. 

 according to Birdwood p. 120. Col. Otley has written fully on 

 the cultivation of this grass as a fodder for cavalry, in the 

 Madras Literary Journal, but some trials made by me near 

 Colombo did not bear out the Colonel's recommendation. It is 

 the Durva, Sans. Doorba, Doobla, Beng. Doob, Ganer, 

 Hind, and Gherika. Tel. " It is the Agrostis of the Greeks 

 according to Fraas. Its flowers in their perfect state are among 

 the loveliest objects in the vegetable world, and appear, through 

 a lens, like minute rubies and emeralds in constant motion from 

 the least breath of air. It is the sweetest and most nutritious 

 pasture for cattle ; and its usefulness added to its beauty, 

 induced the Hindus, in their earliest ages, to believe that it 

 was the mansion of a benevolent nymph. Even the veda 

 celebrates it, as 'in the following text of the A^t'hdrcana: 

 " May Durva, which rose from the water of life, which lias a 

 hundred roots and a hundred stems, efface a hundred of my 

 sins, and prolong my existence on earth for a hundred years J'* 



