362 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
tapering to a fine point, 1-2 feet long, §-2£ inches broad, flat, 
glabrous, margins serrulate, midrib stout. Panicle very dense ; sessile 
spikelets £ inch, obtusely hexagonal, awnless at length, black. Lower 
glume coriaceous below the middle, then deeply rugged, upper part striate 
hairy. Grain almost twice as long as the glume. 
Fruits in December (Schweimf.). 
Distribution : — Cultivated in numberless forms in the tropical and 
subtropical regions, particularly in the Old World, and in the warmer 
parts of the temperate zones of both hemispheres. 
Uses.— Dura (jowari) is much used by the Arabs and Somalis of 
Aden for food. “ The latter boil and eat it like rice, the former pound 
it on a flat stone with a stone roller, moistening, it with water at the same 
time till it assumes the consistence of a thick paste or dough ; this is 
allowed to ferment for a short time, after which it is made into circular 
cakes of about half a pound each, and then baked in an earthen oven. 
These ovens are made of common mud, and are circular and funnel-shaped, 
about five or six feet in circumference, open at both ends like a barrel. 
The oven is fixed in the ground, and a hole made below to remove the 
ashes of the burnt fuel, and also to allow a current of air to pass through. 
The cakes are placed inside on hot ashes ; the dry stalks of jowari are 
used for fuel ; about forty or fifty cakes can be baked at once in a good- 
sized oven. There are two kinds of cake, f Fatir 9 unfermented, and 
f Kidr ; fermented ; they are hawked about, and sold at about half an 
anna the half-pound cake. >n 
For the various uses of this plant see WatPs Diet. Econ. Prod. YI, 
Part III, 277 — 317 • Commerc. Prod. Ind., p. 1031—1043. 
Of the genus Saccharum the following species is cultivated at Shaikh 
Othman (ex Krause ) : 
Saccharum spontaneum Linn. Mant. (1771) 183. 
Description : — A tall erect grass reaching sometimes 20 feet high ; 
stem ereclfrom a stout rootstock, solid, smooth, polished, silky beneath 
the panicle. Leaves 1-2J feet by inch, narrowly linear, finely 
acuminate, rigid, coriaceous, usually glabrous, often with convolute 
margins ; sheaths smooth, with fimbriate mouth ; ligule ovate, mem- 
branous. Panicle 8-24 inches long, lanceolate, silky-hairy; rhachis 
slender ; branches 3 — 5-nate, 2-4 inches long ; rhachis of racemes 
almost capillary, fragile. Spikelets ^ inch long, lanceolate ; callus minute, 
bearded with spreading silky hairs | inch long. Glumes 4 ; lower 
involucral lanceolate-subulate, acuminate ; upper involucral glume equal 
to the lower, lanceolate, obscurely keeled, 1-nerved ; lower floral glume 
1 Hunter, 1. c. p. 64. 
