CHLORIDES 



245 



Gracilea Royleana, Hook. f. 



This is a slender annual grass. Stems are very slender, densely 

 tufted, geniculately ascending or erect, 3 to 8 inches long. 



The leaf-sheath is either covered with scattered tubercle-based 

 hairs or glabrous. The ligule is a hairy ridge. The nodes are 

 glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is filiform, linear-lanceolate, acutely pointed, 

 glabrous or nearly so, margins distantly ciliate, I to 2 inches long 

 by l/l6 inch or less. 



The inflorescence is l / 2 to 3 inches long and consists of fascicles 

 of spikelets ; the rachis is trigonous, smooth, and fiexuous. 



The spikelets consist of four glumes. The first glume is rigidly 

 coriaceous, gradually narrowed from a villous base to an erect 

 scabrid awn, i-nerved. The second glume is also coriaceous, 



FlG. t88. — Gracilea Royleana. 



I. A fascicle of spikelets; 2. the spikelet without the first and the second glumes ; 

 3, 4, 5 and 8. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively ; 6. palea of 

 third glume ; 7. grain ; 9. palea of the fourth glume ; 10. rachilla. 



narrowed to an awn but has broad hyaline margins towards the 

 base. The third glume is ovate-lanceolate, scabrid all over the 

 back and with two teeth, one on each side of the awn, paleate ; 

 the palea is 2-toothed at the apex and as long as the glume and 

 contains three stamens and the ovary. The grain is oblong brown- 

 ish. The fourth glume is stalked, shorter than the third glume, 

 distinctly 3-toothed at the apex, scabrid at the back above the 

 middle, paleate and male ; the palea is smaller than the glume and 

 2-toothed at the apex. The rachilla is produced behind the 

 palea and it ends in two small teeth, one being slightly larger than 

 the other. 



This grass is a very slender one and it is closely allied to 

 Gracilea nutans. It differs from G. nutans in being an annual 

 and in having filiform leaves, bicuspidate third glume which is 

 scabrid all over the back and a fourth glume distinctly tricuspidate 

 at the apex. This does not occur so widely as Gracilea nutans. 



Distribution. — Bellary and Chingleput districts, the Punjab, 

 Rajputana, Concan and Kanara. 



