ELEUSINE CORACANA, OcBrtn. 



[FirfePlate^XXVIII]. 



Description. 



Origin. 



Varieties. 



Distribution. 



English, none ; Veknacular, mandua, marua, makra and rotka (Jalaun). 

 Southern India ; Sanscrit, rajika.t 



The ragi of 



Natural order Gramineae, tribe Chlorideie. A medium-sized annual grass. Stems several, 

 erect, 2-4 ft. high, somewhat compressed, smooth, sulcate. Leaves with long finely sulcate sheaths ; 

 ligule shallow, densely bearded ; blade 1-2 ft., linear, smooth, striate. Spikes 4-6, digitate, incurved, 

 with usually one or more isolated ones placed lower down and representing a second verticil ; spike- 

 lets sessile, 2-5 in., arranged in two rows on one side of a flattened somewhat flexuose and minutely 

 toothed rachis. Florets sessile, distichous. Glumes lanceolate, boat-shaped, with membranous mar- 

 gins, keel prominent, edged with minute forward prickles ; outer one about twice as long as the 

 inner ; lower pale ovate mucronate, the middle nerve forming a prominent keel ; inner pale smaller, 

 bifid, the two principal nerves keeled and armed with small prickles. Lodicules very small, entire or 

 bilobed at the apex. Ovary smooth, shortly stalked ; styles 2, with long feathery stigmas. Seed glo- 

 bular and about the size of mustard, dark reddish brown, transversely wrinkled, enclosed in a loose 

 membranous pericarp. | Var. stricta {E. stricta, Roxb. 1. c. 343), stems 2-5 ft. high, spikes straight. 



Mandua is a native of India. Its specific name is founded on the Cinghalese word 

 Tcourahhan. There is an allied species {Eleusine (sgyptiacd) bearing the same vernacular 

 name {inakrd), and occurring commonly throughout Upper India, which presents to a su- 

 perficial examination hardly any points of difference from the cultivated plant ; the seed 

 of this wild plant is collected by the poorer classes as an unpalateable, though often 

 very serviceable, food. The grain of the cultivated mandua is anything but popular diet. 

 Cakes made from it are very dry eating, and little satisfies an empty stomach. For this 

 reason it is reckoned an economic grain by the poor. But no one eats mandua cakes 

 by preference. It causes, people say, as much discomfort to the stomach as a woollen 

 loin cloth to the skin, and hence the proverb 



*' Mandua ka roti kamala ka dhoti. "§ 

 In addition to the more important variety mentioned above, Roxburgh has described 

 several sub-varieties of this latter, differing in the nature of the soil in which they are 

 cultivated, and also in the season of harvesting, some of them ripening early enough 

 to be succeeded by a crop in the following rabi. 



It is cultivated under two very different circumstances in these Provinces. The 

 most important position it fills is that of the chief food grain of the hill tracts on their 

 northern border, where it is very extensively cultivated. In Jaunsar Bawar it forms 

 the chief article of food of the hill men, and is grown on the very poorest soil, often 

 yielding a crop from mere stones and shingle. It is on the other hand very rarely 



• References :— Gartn. Carp. l. 8 ; Roxb. Fl. Ind. i. 342 ; Drury Useful PI. of Ind. p. 193 ; Baden-Powell Pnnj. 

 Prod. p. 238 ; Gaz. N.-W. P. Vol. x. p. 690 ; DU. L'Orig. PI. Cult. 308 ; Cynoiwus Coracanus, Linn. ; C. tristachys, Lamk. 

 ■f Piddington Index 33. 

 X Roxburgh (1. c.) calls this an aril. 

 § Azamgarh Settlement Report. 



