1 92 Qraminece. \Coix-~ 



glumes 4, I and II empty, I chartaceous, oval, narrowly 

 winged along the inflexed margins, many- veined, II thinner,, 

 about 9-veined, III and IV membranous, hyaline, faintly 

 5-veined, triandrous or IV empty, paleate, paleas with broad 

 flaps, faintly 2-keeled ; lodicules cuneiform, toothed ; anth. 

 long, slender; — fern, spikelet ovoid, entirely enclosed together 

 with the base of the rhachis in an ovoid, eventually harden- 

 ing closed bract ; glumes 4, I chartaceous, II-IV successively 

 thinner, III and IV hyaline, paleate, fern, or III empty,, 

 paleas hyaline ; lodicules o ; ov. ovoid, styles 2, free, very 

 long, capillary, stigmas exserted at the top at the bract, stig- 

 matic hairs short ; grain orbicular, compressed, ventrally 

 channelled, enclosed within the hardened stony bract. — 

 Sp. few ; 1 in Fl. B. Ind. 



C. Xiachryma-jobi, Li?m. Sp. PL 972. Xeekirrindee, .S". 



Herm. Mus. 40, 29. Burm. Thes. 137, 138. Fl. Zeyl. n. 330. Moon, 

 Cat. 62. Thw. Enum. 357 {C. Lachrymd). C. P. 942. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 100. Kunth, Enum. PI. Suppl. t. 3, 4. Beauv. Agrost- 

 t. 24, f. 5. Rheecle, Hort. Mai. xii. t. 70. 



Stem 3-5 ft. or more, stout, rooting at the nodes, inter- 

 nodes smooth, polished ; 1. 4-18 by 1-2 in., narrowed from a 

 broad cordate base to an acuminate tip, smooth on both surfaces,, 

 margins spinulosely serrate, midrib stout, veins many, very 

 slender, sheaths long, smooth, ligule a very narrow mem- 

 brane ; racemes \-2\ in. long, nodding or drooping from very 

 long peduncles, rhachis within the bract slender, above it 

 stout, notched at the nodes ; male spikelets subsecund, imbri- 

 cating, very variable in size, \-\ in. long ; glume I oblong,. 

 II, III, and IV oblong-lanceolate, acuminate ; anth. orange 

 yellow ; fr. from broadly ovoid to globose, \-\ in. diam.,, 

 pale bluish-grey, polished. 



Hotter parts of the Island, naturalised and cultivated. 



Cultivated in many hot countries, especially of Asia. 



There are two species or forms of the genus Coix described by 

 Roxburgh in his Flora Indica (iii. 568, 569), C. Lachryma, L., and 

 C. gigantea, Keen. Of these C. Lachryma is annual, with a stem 4-6 ft. 

 high, and male spikelets in pairs; it inhabits rice grounds and ditches 

 in Bengal. C. gigantea is a perennial, with a stem 8-15 ft. high and 

 male spikelets in threes ; it grows chiefly in the valleys of the Circar 

 Mts. and Bengal. Thwaitus referred the Ceylon plant to C. Lachryma, 

 and gives its habitat as common in cultivated ground. Ferguson (Gram. 

 Indigenous to Ceylon, p. 2) says that C. gigantea is the species found in 

 Ceylon and hitherto confounded with C. Lachryma, adding that Mr. 

 Morris discovered that the latter is hardly indigenous in Ceylon. In 

 his paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society (Ceylon branch) Ferguson 

 gives C. gigantea alone, with the native name of ' Maana,' adding that 



