97 
B.—Poaceer. 
Tribe iv.-—PHALARIDER. 
38. Leersia. 43. Tetrarrhena. 
40. Potamophila. 44, Alopecurus. 
42. Microleena. 47. Hierochloe. 
38. LEERSIA. 
Spikelets one-flowered, flat, articulate, on short pedicels along the 
filiform branches of a terminal panicle. 
Glumes two, complicate and keeled, the outer one the largest. 
No two-nerved Palea. 
Stamens six or in species not Australian three or fewer. 
Styles short, distinct. 
Grain enclosed in the slightly hardened glumes, free from them. 
1. Leersia hexandra, Swartz. 
Botanical name.—Leersia, in honor of J. D. Leers, a German botanist; 
hexandra, Greek hexa, six; aner, andros, a man (botany, stamen), in 
allusion to the six stamens. 
Vernacular name.— Rice Grass.” 
Where jigured.—Bailey. 
Botanical description (B. FI., vii, 549).—An erect though weak 
glabrous grass, attaining several feet, often rooting in the mud at the 
lower nodes. 
Leaves rather narrow, flat when fresh, mostly erect. 
Panicle oblong, 2 to 4 inches long, with erect or slightly spreading filiform flexuose 
branches. 
Spikelets narrow-ovate, about 14 lines long. 
Glumes membranous, acute, the outer one with a prominent nerve on each side 
besides the marginal one; the inner glume nearly as long, but narrower, with 
only one nerve on each side near the margin, 
Stamens six. 
Value as a fodder.—This grass is closely allied to that which pro- 
duces rice. Itisasemi-aquatic grass which is so sparingly distributed 
in this Colony that we know but little of it from a pastoral point of 
view, but it is not likely ever to be important to the raiser of stock. 
Tt is, however, a tender grass, much liked by stock, and Duthie quotes 
Symonds as stating that cattle are fond of it in India. 
“ A widely-distributed perennial swamp-grass found in warm regions 
of both hemispheres. In the Philippine Islands it is regularly culti- 
vated, under the name of Zacate, for the purpose of supplying food 
G 
