ANDROPOGONE/E 1 79 



27. Manisuris, Sw. 



i 



These are erect leafy much branched annual grasses. Leaves 

 are amplexicaul and cordate at the base. The inflorescence 

 consists of small, terete, axillary and terminal spikes with 

 peduncles often confluent in a leafy spiciform panicle ; the rachis 

 is fragile with short broad joints, deeply excavate opposite the 

 sessile spikelets and the tips with two pits. Spikelets are in 

 dissimilar pairs, one globose, sessile and bisexual and the other 

 ovate, pedicelled, neuter with the pedicels adnate to, or closely 

 appressed to the joint of the rachis. The sessile spikelet has four 

 glumes. The first glume is globose, hard, coarsely pitted, with 

 an oblong ventral opening opposite the cavity in the joint of 

 the rachis. The second glume is chartaceous, minute, oblong, I- 

 nerved immersed in the cavity of the first glume and closing the 

 opening. The third and the fourth glumes are hyaline and minute. 

 The lodicules are broadly cuneate. Anthers are minute. The 

 styles are free and stigmas are short exserted from the opening in 

 the first glume. Grain is subglobose. 



