Pharus
(from pharos, a covering; the leaves are used for thatching and other purposes). ORD. Gramineae. A genus comprising about five species (which, however, are closely related) of stove grasses, natives of tropical America, from Brazil to Mexico and Florida. Flowers in a large, terminal, loosely compound panicle, with elongated, slender, often divided branchlets; spikelets unisexual, monaecious, one-flowered, the females two or three times longer than the males. Leaves long-stalked, ample, acuminated, oblique; petioles twisted, often reversed. P. latifolius, the only species introduced, requires culture similar to Bambusa (which see).
P. latifolius (broad-leaved). fl., fertile glume little longer than the sterile pair, villous to the base; female spikelets nearly 1/2 in. long. July. l. obovate-oblong or elliptic-oblong, cuspidate, scabrous beneath, 6in. to 8in. long, 1 1/2in. to 2 1/2in. broad. h. 1 1/2ft. to 3ft. Jamaica, 1796. P. l. vittatus (banded).* A finely variegated form, with foliage banded with white or flushed with rose. (F. d. S. 316, under name of P. vittatus.)