189. GRAMINE.^. [74. Htpogynium. 



Spikes on filiform peduncles 1 -5-3" without the awns, 4-6" with the 

 awns, clothed with spreading white tubercle-based stiff hairs from the 

 outer glumes. Lower pairs of subsimilar spikelets 4-8, green, male or 

 with 3 minute unfertile anthers. Sessile female spkts. -2" or together 

 with the elongated brown-barbed pungent callus •2o--26". Gl. i 

 with involute margins, scabrid, brown ; ii with inflexed nerved 

 margins. 



Chiefly in the drier districts and disappearino- towards Pnrneah and Cnttack, 

 though found on the drier hills of Orissa. Champaran, common in the hills ! 

 Shahabad ! Gaj-a ! Mong-hyr Hills, Kv.rz, etc. ! Chota Xagpur, all districts on 

 the hills and open ground in the valleys, also in forests thinned by fires ! Santal 

 Parg., Rajmahal Hills, common! Mayurbhanj ! Pnri, drier hills! Angul I 

 Sambalpur ! Fl. Sept. -Dec Fr. Oct. -Jan., but all the fruits may not become 

 detached until March when the spike with the disarticulating lower joints and the 

 homogamous spikelets still remain. Annual. 



Noiles glabrous, rarely pubescent. Leaf-sheaths and base of leaves sometimes 

 •with long tubercle-based hairs. Homogamous sessile spikelet "2", callus glabi'ous, 

 gl. i oblong-lanceolate or oblong, margins inflexed, keels symmetrically winged, 

 many-nerved between; ii narrower with inflexed margins slightlj' ciliate, sharply 

 acuminate ; iii fths i, lanceolate with inflexed margins ciliate ; iv 5 to | i with few 

 long cilia, hyaline, awnless. Ped. spkt. like the sessile, but gl. i is unsj'mmetrical 

 having one inflexed margin and winged onljr on that side, mostly longer than the 

 sessile (basal one often much shorter), ii more cuspidate exceeding gi. i ; pedicels 

 about half as long as the joint. The pedicelled heterogamous spkts. are sub- 

 similar and male. Awn of female spkt. hirsute on the column scabrid above. 



A well-known grass from its gregarious character and the annoyance of the 

 pungent barbed fruits which penetrate the clothing and skin. It is much used for 

 thatching and lasts longer than rice straw. The young grass is a fair fodder, the 

 old grass is also used, but only because there is nothing better ; it causes a reddish 

 colour in the dung of horses, and sometimes severe ulceration (from the barbs) in 

 the gums of horses and cattle. The awns, as in other similarly awued grasses, 

 are very hygroscopic and by their contortions and the barbed callus serve to 

 thrust the seed into the ground. 



74. HYPOGYNIUM, Nees. 



Spikes solitary, peduncled in the axil of a spathiform leaf-sheath ; 

 joints and pedicels slender, tops obliquely truncate. Sessile spikelets 

 dorsally compressed ; gl. i with inflexed or involute keeled margins ; 

 ii keeled, awnless ; iii hyaline or ; iv a simple awn. Pedicelled 

 spikelets somewhat similar to the sessile, male or neuter, gl. iv 0, 

 sometimes iii also absent. 



1. H. foveolatum, comb. nor. Syn. Andropogon foveolatus, Del. 



A tufted grass from a few inches high to 2 ft., simple or fastigiately 

 branched above with very narrow, sometimes almost filiform acu- 

 minate leaves mosth' somewhat hairy and ciliate near the base. 

 Spikes 1-1-5" long with verj' slender peduncles, often 3-6 peduncles 

 each with its own proper very slender spathe from a single axil and 

 frequently sharph' geniculate just below the spathe, limbs and pedicels 

 slender villous. Spikelets subec[ual, -OS-- 14" long, linear-oblong, often 

 purplish. Gl. i of sessile spkt. mostly with a dorsal pit above the 

 middle, keels scabridly hispid 3-5-nerved between the keels. 



Behar, J.D.H. ! Manbhum, Camp., Clarice ! Also Gamjam and probably there- 

 fore in Puri. 



Sheaths near base of stem finely silky, upper shorter than the internodes (in 

 Hooker's Behar specimen which is only 3'' high the internodes are scarcely 

 developed). L. scaberulous beneath, ligule short truncate ciliolate. Sessile spkt. 



lOil 



