Pennisetum dasystachyum, Pennisetum typhoideum.

Pennisetum dasystachyum Desv. Gramineae.

Guiana. Earth, in Travels in Northern Africa, says, at Agades, the slaves were busy collecting and pounding the seeds of the karengia, or uzak, which constitutes a great part of their food. Livingstone says the seeds are collected regularly by the slaves over a large portion of central Africa and are used as food.

Pennisetum typhoideum Rich. Spiked Millet.

Tropics. This grass is supposed by Pickering to be a native of tropical America. It is extensively cultivated about Bombay and forms a very important article of food to the natives. In Africa, Livingstone found it cultivated in great quantities as food for man. This species is cultivated in many varieties in India, where it is a native. Drury says it is much cultivated in Coromandel, and that the grain is a very essential article of diet among the natives of the northern Circars. The seeds, says Unger, constitute the principal article of food for the negroes in various parts of Africa. Four varieties are cultivated by the native farmers of Bengal who eat the grain and feed their cattle with the straw.

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick.