274 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Eieusine brevifolia, Br. 



This is an annual grass. Stems are creeping and spreading 

 from the root, and ascending from a decumbent base, generally 

 slender and small, but sometimes large and proliferously branched, 

 leafy, 3 to 7 inches long. 



The leaf-sheath is compressed and glabrous. The ligule is a very 

 short membrane, ciliate at the margin or obsolete. 



The leaf-blade is linear, acute, with a sub-cordate or rounded 

 base Y 2 to 2 inches long and l /$ to % inch, broad. 



The spikes are usually many, sessile and crowded in globose 

 heads, varying in diameter from % to % inch. 



Fig. 207. — Eieusine brevifolia. 



1. A spikelet ; 2 and 3. the first and the second glumes ; 4 and 5. the third glume and 



its palea 6. lodicules, ovary and stamens. 



Spikelets are sessile, biseriate, ovate-oblong, % to Yd inch long> 

 4- to IO-flowered. The first two glumes are membranous, ovate- 

 oblong, glabrous, acuminate and shortly awn ed, the first glume is 

 shorter than the second, I- to 3-nerved, the second glume is longer 

 than the first, 3- to 5-nerved, and the nerves are very close to the 

 middle one in the keel. The third and the succeeding glumes are 

 ovate, cuspidately acuminate, 3-nerved, nerves villous below the 

 middle and paleate ; palea is oblong, lanceolate, truncate and 

 minutely 2-toothed, keels villous below the middle. Anthers are 

 small. Lodicules are also small and cuneate. Styles are long and 

 slender. Grain is orbicular to ovate, concavo-convex, red-brown, 

 and transversely rugose. 



This grass is usually found in somewhat damp situations all 

 over the Presidency, though somewhat local in its distribution. 



Distribution.— Sandy shores of the Coromandel and Carnatic 

 coasts. 



