GRAMINE^. 459 



Stem l^ to 2 feet, tufted, smooth, slender but rigid. 

 Leaf-blades 2 to 5 inches, acuminate, stiffly erect, many- 

 nerved, nearly glabrous : ligule ^ inch. Spikes (of 

 paired spikelets) two, one with stalk of % inch, the pair 

 subtended by a ^-inch acuminate bract. Rachis and 

 stalk of spikelets hairy. Lowest pair of spikelets awnless 

 and infertile. Of the other pairs : sessile spikelet ^s inch ; 

 glume i obscurely two-toothed and two-nerved, with a 

 very narrow scabrid wing hollowed at the base where 

 the edges are incurved ; gl. ii one-nerved, ciliate, 

 mucronate or shortly awned; gl. iv, with slender awn. 

 Pedicelled spikelet : gl. i many-nerved, glabrous ; gl. ii 

 three-nerved, ciliate, shorter; gl. iii hyaline. 



Nilgiris and Pulneys on the open downs, from July to Septem- 

 ber. Bourne 1256, 1946, 3127, 5240, etc. 



ANTHISTIRIA. f.b.i. 173 liv. 



Tall grasses with narrow leaves- Spikelets one- 

 flowered, in spikes or bunches of six to eleven, each bunch 

 with a large empty spathe-like bract at the base, then a 

 ring of four male spikelets without awns, and above them 

 a set consisting of a sessile female awned spikelet and a 

 stalked male one ; or sometimes with two such sets, except 

 that the upper has two male spikelets. The spikes or 

 bunches are again bunched in the axils of large spathes. 



Species few in the warmer parts of the Old World. 



Easily distinguished from all our other genera by the compound bunches 

 of spikelets. 



Anthistiria ciliata Linn,; F.B.I. vii 213, LIV 4. A 

 tall annual grass, very variable in size, often scrambling 

 up bushes. Leaf-blades 4 to 15 inches, ciliate near the 



base with hairs on bulbous bases. Outer spathes I to 3 



* 



inches ; bracts of spikes clothed with tuberculate bristles. 



