Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Useful Australian Plants.

BY J. H. MAIDEN,

Government Botanist and Director of the Botanic Gardens.

No. 32.-A COTTON-BUSH (Kochia villosa, Lindl.)

Vernacular names.-This species varies much in the silkiness or cottony nature of the covering of the stem or of the whole plant. It is occasionally called "cotton-bush," a name sometimes restricted to K. aphylla, looked upon by Baron von Mueller as a variety only of K. villosa; and it also goes under the name of "silky salt-bush."

Botanical name.-Kochia, in honour of Wilhelm David Joseph Koch, who wrote chiefly on German and Swiss plants during the first four decades of this century. Villosa, Latin adjective, meaning hairy, woolly, downy, in allusion to the stems and leaves.

Botanical description (Flora Australiensis, Vol. V, 186).—An undershrub or shrub, erect, spreading, or decumbent, more or less silky-villous, tomentose, or woolly, or the foliage at length nearly glabrous.

Leaves alternate, linear, obtuse, thick and soft in the typical form, terete or flattened, from under in. to about in. long.

Flowers solitary in the axils.

Fruiting perianth depressed, from quite glabrous, except a slight pubescence on the edge of the lobes, to tomentose all over, including the wings; the tube short and broad, without vertical wings, the summit flat within the wings; the lobes very short, and closed over the fruit; the dorsal wings united in a single entire or rarely horizontal ring, membranous, and very finely veined, spreading to from in. to nearly in. diameter.

Styles, two or three, usually long, united at the base.

Bentham observes that this is a very variable species, varying in the foliage and indumentum (silkiness or woolliness), together with the size of the perianth-wing, which, although usually quite entire, is sometimes irregularly lobed. He names the following varieties, both of which are found in this Colony :

humilis, a very dwarf form.

microcarpa, a form with cottony branches, small leaves, and small fruiting perianth.

Value as a fodder.-Though not so valuable as some members of the genus Rhagodia and Atriplex, it is, nevertheless, a very valuable salt-bush, resisting droughts and high temperatures to a remarkable degree, while its nutritive properties are beyond dispute.

Habitat and range.-Occurs in the interior of all the Australian colonies. In our own Colony it is by no means scarce in many of the plains about and beyond the Darling, Lachlan, Bogan, &c.

Reference to plate.-A, Leaves; B, Fruiting branchlet; C and D, Two views of fruiting perianth; E, Seed.

No. 33.-A WIRE-GRASS (Aristida stipoides, R. Br.)

Vernacular name.-" Wire-grass" is the only name known to me for this grass, and the reason for its use is obvious. This is one of the grasses which is only a useful native plant at an early period of its growth.

Botanical name.-Aristida, from the Latin arista, the beard of an ear of corn; stipoides, from two words, stipa, oidos (Greek for like, or similar to), signifying resembling the genus Stipa.

Botanical description (Flora Australiensis, VII, 561).-A perennial grass, with rigid subulate leaves, and with the sheaths minutely ciliate at the orifice.

Panicle long, with a slender rhachis, the lower short erect branches usually bearing
two spikelets, the upper spikelets singly distant on short erect pedicels.
Outer glume 1-nerved, about inch long, glabrous or minutely pubescent.
Second glume rigid, convolute § inch.

Flowering glume scarcely smaller than in A. hygrometrica, but the awn much finer, about 1 inch below the branching, the branches 1 to 2 inches long.

Value as a fodder.-This is a harsh, dry, wiry grass, which is, as a rule, but little relished by animals of any kind. When burnt off it produces a moderate quantity of tender feed, but this soon becomes of a hard, fibrous nature. The awns (three-pronged) with "spears" at the end, are bad for sheep, hence the grass is looked upon with disfavour by the squatter at seedripening time.

Habitat and range. It is found in all the colonies, except Victoria and Tasmania. While mainly an interior species, it extends to the north coast, and to the islands adjacent thereto. In our own Colony it is found in the interior, on sand-ridges.

Reference to plate.-A, Spikelet showing the trifid awn; B, Showing articulation of awn with glume.

AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE OF N. S. WALES. VOL. VII.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

Plan of an inquiry into the merits of Pricklypear as a forage plant.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF PAUL Bourde,

By J. H. MAIDEN.

THE year 1893 has been marked by a great dearth of forage. A kind of universal inquiry has been set afoot by the agricultural press as to the means for guarding against similar calamities. This inquiry interests Northern Africa in a special degree, for here summer regularly brings with it a lengthened period of dry weather, and the question arises, how can we obtain fodder, and particularly green fodder? The question of keeping stock is dominated by the fact that all vegetation ceases to grow between June and October, except in irrigated country. The plant which will resist African summers in the dry country, though constantly sought after, still remains to be discovered. Unfortunately, because of our peculiar climate, all the remedies against droughts which are extolled in Europe are of scanty application in Africa.

I take advantage of the time when men's minds are directed towards matters of this kind, to address an urgent appeal to agriculturists of all countries where it grows, and to scientific men who are interested in it, with the view of collecting all that is really known of a plant which appears capable of remedying the poverty of green fodder which periodically afflicts our agriculture.

I allude to Opuntia ficus-indica, Mill., Opuntia vulgaris of some authors (sic), which is known as Cactus, Barbary fig, or Indian fig in common language. [It is one of the so-called prickly-pears of New South Wales.J.H.M.]

This plant, indigenous to America, has at the present time largely spread over the Mediterranean basin, and particularly in Tunis. Hedges are made of it, and its fruit, the Barbary fig, forms the greater portion of the food of the Arabs during the season when it is ripe. It is also put, at the present time, to some use as a forage-plant. M. Couput, Inspector of Stock at Maudjebeur, recently recommended the leaves to be given to cattle after being allowed to ferment slightly, and assured the Algerian colonists, from his own personal experience, that 75 kilos (a kilo is 24 lb.) of chaff, mixed with 75 kilos of prickly-pear, is equivalent, as far as the support of a beast is concerned, to 100 kilos of hay.

[Translator's notes.-1. The prickly-pear is a plant with which we in Australia are painfully familiar, and, moreover, a large area of this Colony has climate and soil not very dissimilar to that of Tunis. 2. In order to use an expression familiar to most Australians, I have used the term "Prickly-pear as an equivalent to the word "Cactus" in the original, whether it refers to a prickly species or not. The context will make it clear when a non-prickly form is referred to.]

[ocr errors]

Extract from La Revue Tunisienne, organe de l'Institut de Carthage, Tunis, 1894.

« AnteriorContinuar »