378 



WEEDS AND USEFUL PLANTS. 



dactylon], in reference to the plant : " This grass was perceived by Mr. 

 Lambert to be no other than the Agrostis linearis of Koenig, Retzius, 

 and WiLLDENOW, — the Durva of the Hindoos, — which the late Sir 

 William Jones, in the fourth volume of the Asiatic Researches, has 

 celebrated for the extraordinary beauty of its flowers, and its sweetness 

 and nutritious quality as pasture for cattle. We cannot but remark 

 what extraordinary celebrity is attached, every now and then, to one 

 grass or other, and how their fame passes away ' like the morning cloud,' 

 while the best graziers scarcely know, perhaps, better than their fat 

 cattle, anything of the nature of the common, never-failing herbage to 

 which they are both so much indebted." 



10. BLBUSI'NE, Gaertn, Crab-grass. 



[From Eleusis ; where Ceres, the goddess of harvests, was worshiped.] 



SjJikelets 2 - 6-flowered, with a terminal naked rudiment, closely imbri- 

 cated-spiked on one side of a flattish rachis ; the spikes digitate or 

 fascicled. Glumes unequal, shorter than the florets, keeled, pointless. 

 Pale^B awnloss and pointless, the lower ovate, keeled ; the upper smaller, 

 2-keeled. Stamens 3. Pericarp (utric'e) containing a loose wrinkled 

 seed. Annuals with low aiid spreading culms ; pale green. 



1. E. In'dica, Gaertn. Culm compressed, decumbent ; spikes 2-4 or 

 6, linear, straight, digitate ; spikelets lance-ovate, about 5-flowered. 



Indian Eleusine. Dog's-tail Grass. Crow-foot, Crab or Yard Grass. 



Eoot annual. Oulm 6-12 and 18 inches long, oblique or often nearly procumbent, 

 smooth, branching at base. Xeaues 2-12 inches long, rather crowded and distichous at 

 the base of the culm, linear, often inclined to be condu]jlicate, smooth or sparingly pilose ; 

 sheaths loose, striate, glabrous, pilose at throat ; Ugule very short, truncate, minutely 

 dentate. Sjrikes 2-4, sometimes 6 (rarely 1),1 or 2-4 inches long ; rachis compressed. 

 Spihelets imbricated, smooth. Lower palea ovate-lanceolate, with a green keel, — the upper 

 one a third shorter, with 2 keels. Oaryopsis triangular-ovoid, dark brown, trans- 

 versely rugose. 



Farm-yards, lanes and along foot-paths. Native of India. Fl. August -September 

 Fr. September -October. 



Obs. This grass is extensively naturalized, especially southward. 

 It is usually to be seen in abundance in lanes and wood-yards, about 

 farm-houses during the latter part of summer, — where it grows very 

 thick, and forms a fine carpeting in spots which had been previously 

 naked and muddy. Cattle and hogs are fond of it, — and Mr. Elliott 

 commends it for hay ; but in this region it rarely grows in mowing 

 grounds to any considerable extent. 



There is another species (E. Coracana, Gaertn.), which is " cultivated 

 as corn, under the name of Natchenny, upon the Coromandel coast." 

 I believe it is unknown in this country,— and probably would not bo 

 worth introducing. 



