160 CLXXIII. GRAMINEJS. (J, D. Hooker.) [Manisuris. 



Throughout the hotter parts of INDIA, from the Panjab eastward to Burma, and 

 southward to CESLON. DISTRIB. Most tropical countries. 



Stem 1-2| ft. and leaves softly hairy, leafy to the top, as thick as a crow-quill. 

 Leaves 4-10 by J in., flaccid, flat, acuminate ; sheaths hirsute, inflated ; ligule a 

 raised ciliate margin. Spikes -1 in. ; peduncle filiform. Sessile spikelets ~ in. 

 diam., superposed like minute beads on the rachis, and each as it were bracteate by 

 the upper spikelet of the pair below it. 



2. UK. porifera, Hack, in (Estr. Sot. Zeitschr. xli. (1891) 48; sessile 

 spikelets broadly oblong truncate deeply broadly pitted, gl. I 5-nerved 

 between transverse longitudinal ridges, II 3-nerved. 



SIKKIM HIMALAYA ; Dikeeling, alt. 3000 ft., Clarke. TENASSERIM, Heifer. 



Habit and foliage, &c. of M. granularis. Spikelets T V~ro m -> brownish; callus 

 smooth or foveolate; gl. I excised at the base on both sides, leaving a rounded pore 

 between it and the rachis. There is a specimen of this in Herb. Wight, without 

 name or locality. 



48. OPHXURUS, Gsertn. 



Annual or perennial grasses. Spikes solitary or fascicled, terete- fragile ; 

 joints excavate, top concave. Spikelets 2-fld., solitary and sessile in the 

 joints (with no upper or pedicel of one), not awned. Glumes 4, I thickly 

 coriaceous, convex, obtuse; II almost membranous, concave, keeled; III 

 elliptic, obtuse, hyaline, faintly 2-nerved, margins infolded, paleate, male ; 

 IV as long as III, oblong, obtuse, -nerved, paleate bisexual, palea narrow ; 

 IY oblong, obtuse. Lodicules 2, cuneate. Stamens 3. Grain oblong, free. 

 Species one or I wo. Tropical Asiatic and African. 



Ophiurus, as defined by Hackel and Bentham, is an artificial genus, of which the 

 original species, 0. corymbosu*, has solitary sessile 2-fld. spikelets on each joint of 

 the spike, with no obvious traces of a second, by which character it differs from 

 Rotfboellia. Of other Indian plants referred to it, O. perforatus (Rottboellia per- 

 forata, Roxb.) has 2 sessile 1-fld. spikelets on each joint of the spike, with a long 

 interposed pedicel of a second perfect or imperfect one. It is the genus Mnesithea 

 of Kunth. Two admitted species of Rottboellia have the same structure as O. 

 perforatus, namely, R. hirsuta, Forsk., and R. geminata, Hack. These three should 

 form either a separate genus (Mnesltliea), or a section of Rottboellia, which latter 

 course I have adopted. Hackel describes the joints of 0. corymbosus as being 

 thickened on one side by the presence of the confluent pedicel of a second spikelet, 

 but I find no trace of this (nor can Dr. Stapf), and he describes R. perforatus as 

 with one sessile spikelet on each joint, or with two on the lower joints only ; but I 

 find that in all the specimens two sessile spikelets is the normal condition almost 

 throughout the spikes, the uppermost joints alone having but one. 



O. corymbosus, Gsertn. f. Fruct. iii. 4, t. 181, f. 3 a (Ophiuros] ; 

 Kunth Enum. PI. i. 464; Hack. Moriogr. Androp. 317 ; Steud. Si/n. Gram. 

 359; Wall. Gat. n. 8874; Wight Cat. n. 1723; Duthie Grass. N.W. Ind. 

 17, Fodd. Grass. N. Ind. 29, t. 55 ; Lisboa in Bomb. Journ. Nat. Hist. vi. 

 (1891) 193; Benth. Fl. Austral, vii. 512. Rottboellia corymbosa, Linn.f. 

 &ugpL r H4; Roxb. PI. Corom. ii. 42, t. 181, Fl. Ind. i. 355 ; Grah. Cat. 

 Bomb. PI. 233. R. punctata, Retz. Obs. iii. 11. JSgilops exaltata, Linn. 

 Mant. ii. App. 575 ; Retz. I. c. ii. 27. 



Dry hills, ascending to 3500 ft. in the HIMALAYA and KHASIA HILLS, and 

 southward to the DECCAN PENIHSULA (not in Ceylou).-^DiSTB,iB. Tonkin, Aus- 

 tralia. 



Perennial. Stems erect from a tuberous base, 5-6 ft., as thick as a goose-quill 



