Thuarea.] Graminece. 173 



S. India, Siam, Mascarene Islds., Africa, Trop. Australia. 



Varies greatly in size, especially of the rhachis of the inn., which is 

 sometimes as narrow as the fig. spike. In Fl. B. Ind., following Dcell 

 in Mart. -Fl. Bras., I regarded the old and new world forms of this plant 

 as one species. They are indeed most closely allied, but Dr. Stapf finds 

 characters in the unequally lobed internodes of the rhachis in the Old 

 World plant, one lobe being produced into a tooth or spine, and the 

 minutely serrulate margins of the rhachis. In the same work this is 

 erroneously stated to inhabit the plains throughout India, whereas it is 

 confined to southern India and Ceylon. According to Ferguson, it is 

 an excellent fodder grass. 



12. THUAREA,* Pers. 

 A perennial, prostrate, widely creeping, diffusely branched, 

 low, leafy, littoral grass; branches short; 1. short, flat; infl. a 

 terminal spike enclosed In a spathiform sheath, rhachis her- 

 baceous, base at length accrescent and enveloping the rest of 

 the spike with the spikelets; spikelets few, 2-fld., uniseriate, 

 sessile on the under face of the rhachis, persistent, lower one 

 or two female or bisexual, upper male ; male spikelets : — 

 glumes 3 or 4, I minute, hyaline or o, II and III subequal, 

 broadly oblong, obtuse, pubescent, III paleate, male or neuter, 

 palea hyaline, cleft nearly to the base into two lanceolate 

 ciliate i-veined segments, IV triandrous, paleate, palea oblong 

 with inflected sides and a truncate-ciliolate tip; anth. small; 

 fern, spikelets : — glumes as in the male, but III empty, IV 

 more coriaceous, palea lanceolate, acuminate, terete; lodicules 

 minute, suborbicular ; styles 2, distant, stigmas plumose ex- 

 serted at the top of the glume; grain free in the hardened 

 glume and palea, but all enclosed in the accrescent base of 

 the spike, forming together a trigonously obconic or turbinate 

 nut with a deep depression on one side of the crown. — 

 Monotypic. 



T. sarmeatosa, Pers. Syn. i. no (1805). 

 Thw. Enum. 362 (T/iouarea). C. P. 3260. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 91. Kunth, Revis. Gram. i. t. 35. Beauv. Agrost. 

 ;t. 22, f. 9. 



Stems 2-3 ft., slender, smooth, branches erect, 1-2 in.; 

 1. distichous, 1-2 in., spreading, linear-oblong or lanceolate, 

 .acuminate, coriaceous, silkily pubescent, base narrow, margins 

 nearly smooth, sheath \ in., compressed, pale, ligule a ridge of 

 hairs; spikes ^-1 in., 6-8 in. long, subsessile in the spathaceous 

 sheath, deflexed or horizontal; glumes II and III membra- 

 nous, pubescent and ciliate, 5-7-veined, outer veins distant 



* Name. 



