84 



Habitat and range. This grass is usually found on damp, sour soils ; 

 often it grows on poor, rocky soils, but by no means on worthless soils 

 as a rule. It furnishes the principal grass of the Alang Alang fields 

 of the Malay Archipelago. It is found in most parts of New South 

 Wales, and in all the colonies. It is also a native of Europe, Asia, 

 Africa, and America an almost cosmopolitan grass. 



31. CHRYSOPOGON. 



Fertile spikelets one-flowered, sessile between two pedicellate male 

 or barren spikelets at the end of the filiform unequal simple or divided 

 branches of a terminal panicle, with sometimes one to three pairs of 

 spikelets on the branch below the terminal three. 



Glumes of the fertile spikelets four, the outer one the largest, 

 awnless, membranous, and many-nerved, or more rigid with the lateral 

 nerves prominent and often muricate ; second glume narrow, keeled, 

 pointed or produced into a fine straight awn ; third much smaller, 

 very thin, and hyaline ; fourth or terminal glume under the flower 

 slender, flexuose, and stipes-like at the base, or dilated hyaline and two- 

 lobed, with a short or long awn terminal or from between the lobes, 

 twisted in the lower half and bent back above the middle as in 

 Andropogon. 



Palea very small or none. 



Styles distinct. 



Grain enclosed in the glumes, but free from them. 



Pedicellate spikelets awnless with reduced glumes and usually one 

 male flower. 



Spikelets 3 to 5 lines long, one fertile and two pedicellate ones to 

 each branch ; second glume of the fertile one awned ; awn of 

 the terminal one long and rigid ... ... ... ... ... 1 C. gryllus. 



Spikelets scarcely 1^ lines long, one to three fertile besides the pedi- 

 cellate ones on each branch, second glume awnless ... ... 2 C.parviftorus. 



1. Chrysopogon gryllus, Trin. 



Botanical name. Chrysopogon, from two Greek words signifying 

 <( golden beard," the tuft of hairs under the spikelet being sometimes 

 of a golden colour (very marked in C. gryllus). Gryllus Latin, a 

 cricket. Trinius took the specific name from Linnaeus (Andropogon 

 gryllus), but it is not evident why the species is connected with a 

 cricket. 



Synonym. Andropogon gryllus, Linn., in Mueller's Census. 



Where figured. Duthie (sectional drawing) . 



Botanical description (B. Fl., vii, 537). An erect glabrous grass of 

 2 to 4 feet. 



Leaves long and narrow, with a small ligula. 



Panicle loose and spreading, 3 to 6 inches long, of numerous capillary simple 

 branches mostly verticillate, of very unequal length, each bearing a single 

 hermaphrodite spikelet, sessile between 2 pedicellate male ones, with a tuft of 

 hairs at the base of the sessile one and on the pedicels. 



