SETARIA ITALICA, Beauv.' 



[Vide Plate XXV.] 



English, Italian millet; Vbenaculab, kakun, kangrxi, kauni, tangan (Azamgarh), kakni 

 (Bijuor); Sanscrit, kangu, priyangu.f 



ITatural order GraminecB, tribe PaniceoB. A tall handsome grass with long nodding bristly 

 flowering spikes. Stems many, erect, 3-5 ft. high, round, smooth, rooting from the lower nodes. 

 Leaves 1^-2 ft. long and about 1 in. broad, rough with forward bristles ; sheaths about 8 in. 

 long, sulcate, striate, pilose not hispid ; ligule bearded. Panicles ovate, closely arranged in a com- 

 pact more or less cylindrical spike ; rachis densely pilose. Spikelets 2-flowered, intermixed with 

 sterile setiform peduncles disposed in the form of an involucre ; upper flower hermaphrodite, lower 

 sterile. Glumes very unequal, ovate, acute, membranous. Pales equal, smooth, rounded. Lodicules 

 2, obcuneate, truncate. Fruit (the grain) closely invested by the pales, light yellow, roundish, sub- 

 compressed, with a broad furrow on one side proceeding from the embryo. 



DecandoUe mentions China, Japan and the Indian Archipelago as the countries 

 from which this plant has most probably originated and spread. It was one of the five 

 plants which the Chinese Emperor had to sow every year according to the order given 

 by Chen-nung 2,700 before Christ. The Sanscrit name Jcangu indicates its antiquity as 

 a cultivated plant in India. 



Kakun is much esteemed as an article of human food in some districts, and is eaten 

 both in the form of cakes and as porridge, but an objection commonly made to it is that 

 it has heating properties. It is also grown as food for cage birds, and is popularly sup- 

 posed to be of medicinal use in alleviating the pains of child-birth. The grain may be 

 straw-yellow or reddish-yellow, and this indicates at least two varieties. 



The area under kakun is even smaller than that under chehna. In each of the 

 Meerut and Eohilkhand Divisions it amounts to about 1,200 acres. In the districts of 

 the Agra Division it is somewhat larger (about 1,600 acres), and in the Allahabad Divi- 

 sion it reaches the comparatively high figure of 8,000 acres. The area which it covers 

 in the three districts of Azamgarh, Basti and Gorakhpur is about the same as that in. 

 Eohilkhand. In the Jhansi Division it is reported to be grown on 2,600 acres. But it 

 is far more commonly grown as a subordinate crop than by itself, and these figures great- 

 ly under-estimate its real agricultural importance. In the Doab it is commonly sown 

 in juar or chari fields on better class land, and in the Azamgarh District it is very 

 generally mixed with sawan. 



It is sown with the commencement of the rains and reaped in September, being as 



• References :— Beauv. Agrost. 51 ; Kunth Ennm. i. 153 ; Parlatore Fl. Ital. i. 113 ; Gaz. N.-W. P. Vol. x. 689. 

 Panicuvi italicum. Linn.; Roxb. FI. Ind. i. 302 ; Drury Useful PI. of India 326 ; DC. L'Orig. Pi. Cult. 303. Pennisetum itali- 

 cum, R. Br. ; Badea-Powell Punj. Prod. 237. 



t Piddington Index 66. 



