Potytoca.~\ ^Graminece. 193 



it is common in waste land up to 5000 ft. In the Flora of British India, 

 a<ter an examination of a great number of specimens from all parts of 

 the country, I have, supported by Dr. Stapf, treated C. gigantea as a 

 variety of Lachryma Jobz, distinguished by its size, perennial root, and 

 longer drooping racemes; and a review of the materials for this work 

 confirms this view, the two forms passing into one another. Referring 

 to the Ceylon material in Herb. Peraden. (C. P. 942) I find good specimens 

 of a plant with ternate male spikes, but they do not afford means of telling 

 whether they are of annual or perennial plants. In Herb. Kew. there is 

 a specimen of true C. Lachryma with shorter racemes and binate male 

 spikelets, from Col. Walker. 



Coix Lachryma Jobi is cultivated by the hill tribes of some parts of 

 India (apparently not in Ceylon) for its grain, the covering of which is 

 much softer than in the indigenous form. Its nutritious value is low. 



25. POLYTOCA, Br. 

 Tall, stout, erect, branching, leafy, perennial, monoecious 

 grasses ; stem spongy within ; 1. long, flat ; in ft of spiciform 

 racemes terminating the branches, at first enclosed in spathi- 

 form bracts ; racemes all male, or with one or more fern, 

 spikelets at the base, rhachis articulate at the base and 

 above the fem. spikelets ; male spikelets 2-fld., sometimes 

 imperfect, solitary or binate, a sessile and pedicelled ; glumes 

 4, with sometimes a terminal rudimentary imperfect, all sub- 

 equal in length, I and II empty, I herbaceous, shallowly concave, 

 strongly many-veined, and with a narrow membranous wing 

 within the margin on each side, II much narrower, dorsally 

 compressed, ovate, acuminate, chartaceous, rarely herbaceous, 

 unequally 7-9-veined, III membranous, oblong, acuminate, 

 3-5-veined, paleate, triandrous, IV very slender, linear, deli- 

 cately hyaline, vein central or o, paleate, triandrous or empty, 

 paleas as long as the glumes, of III broadly linear, hyaline, 

 2-keeled, of IV narrowly linear, flat, veins 2 or o ; lodicules 2, 

 in both fl., cuneate ; anth. long, linear, much largest in glume 

 III ; — fem. spikelet broadly oblong, dorsally compressed, i-fld.; 

 glume I thickly coriaceous, closely embracing the rhachis of 

 the spike by its infolded margins, veins many, obscure, II, 

 III, and IV enclosed in I, delicately membranous, hyaline, 

 II quadrately oblong, many- veined, III narrower, oblong, 

 3-5-veined, paleate, empty, IV very narrow, truncate, 3-veined, 

 paleate, flowering, paleas of III and IV very narrow, truncate, 

 2-veined, wrapped round the ov. ; lodicules o; styles very 

 long, exserted from the top of glume I, stigmas capillary, 

 minutely pubescent ; grain enclosed in the thickened, nut- 

 part v. O 



