198 JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



pogon malacopht/llus, Steud. Syu. PL Glum. I. 372; /. aristatum, 

 Roxb. Fl. hid. I. 319. All these varieties are seen by me ; a few- 

 others mentioned by Hackel, 1. c. have not come under my observa- 

 tion. 



Ver. Bara, Bher. All over India, Burma, Ceylon and China; 

 seldom used as a fodder grass. Mr. Fergusson, under Spodiopoyon 

 obliqicivalvis, describes 3 varieties or forms. " The larger hairy form 

 occurs at a considerable elevation on the hills." Another form of 

 this grass, reserved in fields and under the shades of cocoanut 

 trees in and near Colombo and extensively brought into town as 

 fodder for cattle, is well-known as the Rat-tana, literally red -grass, 

 of the Sinhalese. 



It appears that Fergusson describes two species of Ischmnum under 

 the name of Spodiopogon obliquivalvis. 



I. Timorense, Kunth., Revis. Gram. I. 369, Plate 98 ; Spodiopoyon 

 Blumii, Nees., Steud. Syn. PL Glum. I. 376. A slender grass. Culm 

 8 — 20 in. long, somewhat compressed, creeping and rooting from 

 the lower nodes, branching from the middle ones ; the upper part 

 reduced to a naked peduncle. Nodes short-bearded. Sheath glabrous, 

 ciliate at the mouth. Ligula short, truncate. Leaves very narrow 

 at the base, linear-lanceolate, 3 — 4 in. long, acuminate, scabrous at the 

 margins and sprinkled with adpressed hairs. Racemes 1 — l^in. long, 

 2 in number — one sessile, and the other on a short (about 31 in. long) 

 pedicel, yellowish. Rachis and pedicels of spikelets with yellowish 

 hairs. Sessile spikelet : 1st glume 3 — 5 nerved, hairy at the base, 

 glabrous on the dorsum. 2nd glume bidentate, one of the teeth drawn 

 into a slender awn-like point. 3rd glume hyaline, thin, with a male 

 flower (anthers and palea) in the axil. 4th glume by a line divided 

 into 2 lobes, and sending a slender bent and twisted awn about 4 — 5 

 times longer than the spikelet. A hermaphrodite flower in the axil of 

 this glume. Pedicillate spikelet: 1st and 2nd glume with a short 

 straight awn. The remaining glumes as in the sessile spikelet. 

 Received specimens from North Kanara. It grows also in Ceylon, 

 Java, Timor, Pegu, Martaban and Singapur. Nothing is known of 

 its uses. 



I. petiolare, Spodiopoyon petiolaris, Trin. in Mem. Ac. Petersb. 

 Pollima Latmanni, "W. Ar. and Nees PL Meyen. 186. Andropogon 



