ANDROPOGONE^ 1 7/ 



26. Mnesithea, Kimth. 



These are erect slender perennial grasses with narrow leaves. 

 The spikes are solitary and slender, with a fragile, articulated 

 rachis ; the joints are terete, ribbed, all but a few upper with two 

 equal and similar sessile spikelets, sunk in sub-opposite oblong 

 cavities, separated by a hyaline septum, and with sometimes a 

 minute glume representing a third spikelet (the pedicelled) on the 

 upper margin of the joint. The sessile spikelets are one-flowered, 

 nearly as long as the internode. There are four glumes in the 

 spikelet. The first glume closing the mouth of the cavity in the 

 joint is obliquely oblong, obtuse, smooth with narrowly incurved 

 margins. The second and the third glumes are as long as the first, 

 obtuse and hyaline. The third glume is empty, paleate or not. 

 The fourth glume is rather small, oblong, obtuse, bisexual and 

 palea shorter than the glume. The lodicules are not present. The 

 stamens are three. Ovary is very small with stigmas not exserted. 

 The grain is narrowly oblong compressed. The pedicelled spikelets 

 are confined to the upper i-flowered joints of the spike and their 

 pedicels are confluent with the walls of the joints and their margins 

 are marked by two ribs. The first glume is very minute and the 

 other glumes are absent. 



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