158 Graminece. [Pam'cum. 



sparsely hairy, striate, base contracted, obtuse or rounded, 

 sometimes with a few long cilia at the base, margins 

 scaberulous, sheaths glabrous or hairy, margins ciliate, 

 especially below the mouth, ligule short, rounded; panicle 

 very various, firm, short, erect, with few short few-fid. 

 branches, or up to 6 in. long, with very distant, solitary, widely 

 spreading capillary branches bearing very few spikelets on 

 capillary pedicel sometimes 1 in. long, rhachis and branches 

 often flexuous, glabrous, quite smooth; spikelets tV~tV m -j 

 gibbous, laterally compressed ; glumes I— I II pubescent, 

 hispidulous or villous, I about half as long as III, broadly 

 ovate, acute or cuspidate, membranous, 3-veined, II and III 

 5-veined, obtuse, II galeate, III obovate- oblong, empty, 

 palea rudimentary or o, IV sessile, semilunar, white, obtuse, 

 laterally compressed, margins not incurved, dorsally rounded, 

 coriaceous, minutely punctulate, shining, palea oblong, coria- 

 ceous, dorsally rounded, sides broadly incurved. 



Common up to 7000 ft. Spikelets pale brown. 



Bengal, S. India, and Java. 



A very variable grass in size and in the open or contracted panicle. 

 Thwaites considered both P. pilipes and patens to be varieties of it, 

 probably rightly. Ferguson regards pilipes, patens, and trigonum, 

 as one species, and says of it, 'Perhaps the most variable grass 

 in Ceylon next to Spodiopogon obliquivalvis ; also that with P. ovali- 

 folium and P. curvatum it forms the principal part of the fodder collected 

 by the grass-women for horses in the Cinnamon Gardens. 



30. P. pilipes, Nees and Arn. ex Biise in Miq., Pl.Jungh. in. 376 



(185 1-5). 



Trim. Cat. Ceyl. PI. 105. P. hermaphroditum, Steud. Syn. Gram. 67. 

 P. trigonum, Retz. (in part) ; Thw. Enum. 359. C. P. 100, 891. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 57. 



Perennial ; stem. 2-3 ft., rather stout, erect from a creeping 

 base, as thick as a duck's quill or less, leafy, simple or branched, 

 stiff, polished, internodes 3-4 in., nodes glabrous, lower with 

 solitary very stout simple flexuous roots up to a foot long 

 and longer; 1. 4-6byf-i in., linear-lanceolate, finely acuminate, 

 spreading, flat, thin, smooth, glabrous, veins 3-4 pairs, and 

 midrib obscure above, slender but prominent and pale beneath, 

 base contracted, rounded, sheaths quite glabrous, eciliate, 

 ligule very short, truncate ; panicle 3-7 in., contracted, rhachis 

 smooth, branches distant, alt., erect or suberect, rather stiff, 

 filiform, simple and naked below, with short fig. branchlets 

 above the middle ; spikelets T \ in., shortly pedicelled, erect, 

 gibbously obovoid, obtuse, nearly glabrous, pedicels with often 

 long, white, spreading hairs; glumes I-III 3-veined, or III 

 obscurely 5-veined, veins free, I broadly ovate, acute, about 



