This is an excellent fodder grass and it grows quickly and stands cutting very well. Cattle eat this grass very well.
Distribution.—This grass is found all over India in the plains or lower elevations of hills.
Andropogon squarrosus, L.f.
(Vetiveria zizanioides.)
This is a densely tufted perennial grass with branching root-stocks and spongy aromatic roots.
The stems are leafy, with equitant, hard, leaf-sheaths at the base, smooth and polished, solid, 2 to 3-1/2 feet high.
The leaf-sheaths are smooth, coriaceous, glabrous, keeled and compressed. The ligule is a very short membrane.
Leaf-blades are narrowly linear, erect, strongly keeled and flat, acuminate, glabrous both above and below, very much narrower than the sheath at the base, 1 to 2 feet by 1/3 to 3/4 inch.
The panicle is conical, erect with branches, fascicled, varying in length from 4 to 12 inches. The spikes consist of both sessile and pedicelled spikelets, that are either grey, green, or purplish.