168 ADDITIONS TO THE FLORA OF CEYLON. 



numerous and large, and belongs to the form called N. muncata 

 Del., originally described from Egypt, and often maintained as a 

 species, as by Braun in bis revision of the genus (Journ. Bot. 1864, 

 274). N. graminea Del. is a common plant in the fresh or slightly 

 brackish shallow backwaters so frequent on both the E. and W. 

 coasts of Ceylon, and also inland ; and is C. P. 8887. I have also 

 specimens of a much larger species, probably iV. indica Cham. (X 

 minor All., var. indica A. Br.), which I collected in the Southern 

 Province in 1881, but I cannot be certain of this identification. 

 This species is given for Ceylon in Moon's Catalogue, p. 61 {Caulinia 

 indica Willd.), but not since recorded. 



Isachne minutula Kunth [Panicum Gaudich.). The late Mr. W. 

 Ferguson during the last few years of his life devoted much of his 

 time to the collection of grasses, and among his specimens I have 

 detected several interesting additions to our flora. The present 

 little species was obtained by him in swampy land at Udugama, 

 Southern Prov., in Oct. 1886 ; it is nearly allied to the smaller 

 forms of I. aiistralis Br., but can be distinguished by the smaller 

 spikelets all on very slender pedicels, the hairy leaves, and the 

 diffuse creeping habit. Our plant differs from the type — which is 

 recorded only from the Marianne Islands and Guinea — in having the 

 two lowest glumes provided with long weak hairs. 



OjjJismemis Burmanni Beauv. [Panicnm Retz.). In my recent 

 'Catalogue of Ceylon Plants' (p. 105) I prefixed a query to this 

 species, as the plant so called by Thwaites (Enum. 858), C. P. 8683, 

 is nothing more than long-awned 0. compositiis Beauv. In Jan. 

 1886, however, Mr. W. Ferguson sent me from Trincomalie speci- 

 mens of the true 0. Burmanni figured by Burman (Fl. Ind. t. xii. f. 1) 

 and described by Eetzius (Obs. iii. 10), and readily distinguishable 

 from all forms of the very variable 0. compositus by the much shorter 

 branches of the panicle, with smaller and much more closely placed 

 spikelets, and by its more lax and slender habit. Its range appears 

 to be much more restricted than that of the latter, but is scarcely 

 ascertained with accuracy. 



Oryza granidata Nees & Arn. in Wight, Lith. Cat. 142, n. 2354, 

 and Steud. Syn. Gram. 3 (name only). Perennial, with a tufted 

 rootstock, glabrous throughout, bright pale green ; culms 1-2 ft. 

 high, very strongly compressed and often ancipitous in the lower 

 part ; leaf-blade rather short and broad, abruptly narrowed at the 

 base into a short broad petiole, rather stiff, very finely rough on 

 both surfaces ; midrib very prominent beneath, always excentric ; 

 sheaths quite smooth, save a tuft of short bristles on either side at 

 the mouth ; ligule very short ; inflorescence very short, erect, stiff, 

 spicate-racemose, with very few spikelets ; spikelets small, ^ m. 

 long, the two lowest glumes minute thorn-like at the base of the 

 spikelet, the 3rd and 4th very hard, stiff, and horny, equal, blunt, 

 quite without awns, their whole surface copiously and irregidarly 

 covered with rather coarse rough granulations or tubercles, glabrous. 

 Collected in Nov. 1886, in dense virgin forest on the rocky ridge at 

 the summit of Wattahapat Kande, two miles from Rambukkana, 

 Kegalla District, Western Province, by the late W. Ferguson. There 



