Roots creeping, somewhat woody, and rather brittle, smooth, 
yellowish white, producing strong, branching fibres from the joints. 
Stems cylindrical, leafy, very smooth, matted, creeping to a con- 
siderable extent, and, like the roots, throwing out fibres from the 
joints. Leaves tapering, sharp-pointed, hairy, a little glaucous ; 
with long, striated, smooth, sometimes hairy sheaths, and a short, 
hairy stipula. Flowering-branches upright, from 5 to 8 or 10 
inches high, leafy, simple, and terminating in 4 or 5 nearly equal, 
crowded, upright, finally spreading, many-flowered, thread-shaped 
spikes ; the common stalk or rachis of each triangular, roughish, 
flat, and slightly bordered on one side. Spikelets ( Flowers of 
Smith and Withering) nearly sessile, shining and purplish, all 
growing on one side of the rachis or spike-stalk. Palece compressed, 
longer than the glumes, and opposite to them ; occasionally with the 
rudiment of a second floret, like a small bristle. 
Mr. Lambert and Mr. G. Sinclair have both very satisfactorily 
proved the Cy'nodon Dactylon to be the same species as the Durva, 
Dub, or Doob-grass of the Hindoos ; but from the experiments of 
Mr. Sinclair, as recorded in his valuable work, the Hortus Grami- 
neus Woburnensis, it appears that the produce and nutritive powers 
of this grass, in Great Britain, are insignificant, compared to the 
importance attached to them in the East Indies, where it grows 
luxuriantly, and is highly valued as food for horses, &c. It is much 
praised by the late Sir W. Jones, in the 4th volume of the Asiatic 
Researches for its great beauty, as well as for its usefulness. — 
“ Its flowers,” says this elegant writer, “ 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 nutricious 
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! harvana : ‘ May Durva, which rose from 
the water of life, which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, 
efface a hundred of my sins, and prolong my existence on earth for 
a hundred years.’ ” 
t Pages 248 & 249. 
