280 TRIANDRIA DIGYNIA. Paspalum. 



ascending six or eight inches high, jointed, smooth. Leaves 

 sheathing, alternate, bifarions, short ; mouths of the sheaths 

 bearded. Spikes paired, terminal, sessile, spreading, secund. 

 Flowers in two rows, alternate, oblong, somewhat paired, 

 smooth. Calyx and carol without nerves. 



4. P. lonyifolium. R. 



Erect, simple. Leaves as long as the culms. Panicle of 

 many simple, alternate, diverging spikes scattered round a 

 three-sided rachis. Valvelets of the calyx three-nerved. Seed 

 oval, lucid, and marked with minute pits. 



Of what country this is a native is uncertain. It appeared 

 in the Botanic garden in 1807, in a place where plants from 

 Sumatra had been planted, it is therefore more than probable 

 that the seeds were in the earth. 



Culms several from one root, simple, straight, jointed, 

 nearly erect, round and smooth, height of the whole plant 

 when in flower above three feet. Leaves long, viz. from one 

 to three feet, sheaths included, slender, acute, smooth, except 

 the edges when rubbed backward. Sheaths longer than the 

 joints of the culm, and smooth, except at the top, where there 

 are a few, long, soft hairs near the short scariose ligula. Pa- 

 nicle composed of from twelve to twenty-four, simple, diverg- 

 ing spikes, scattered alternately round a three-sided rachis, 

 nearly a foot in length. "-Spikes sessile, with a few, long, 

 straight, white hairs round their insertions, about three inches 

 long. Rachis flat, with a waved keel on the underside, and 

 coloured, waved margins. Flowers in numerous, alternate, 

 imbricated pairs on the underside of the flat rachis, on une- 

 qual, short pedicels. Calyx of two, very equal, oval leaflets 

 with a nerve or rib round the margins, and one down the 

 middle. Seeds oval, dotted with innumerable, small pits, 

 shining. 



