MnesWiea.] Gra,7ninecB. 209 



margined with a broad hyaline ciliate wing, veins 5-7, very- 

 broad, II laterally compressed, cymbiform, 5-7-veined, keel 

 with a dorsal hyaline ciliate wing, III and IV o, or hyaline; 

 grain subglobose. — Sp. 2; both in Fl. B. Ind. 



3ME. granularis, Linn.f. Nov. Gram. Gen. 37 (1779). 



Thw. Enum. 364. Hack. Monogr. Androp. 314. C. P. 81. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 159. Gaertn. Fruct. ii. t. 175. Beauv. Agrost. t. 21, 

 f. 10. Roxb. PI. Corom. t. 118. 



Stems \-2\ ft., and 1. softly hairy, flaccid, branching, leafy 

 to the top, branches and 1. erect, nodes hairy; 1. 4-10 by 

 \-\ in., linear, acute or acuminate, flat, upper often spathi- 

 form, hairy on both surfaces or beneath only, hairs often 

 tubercle-based, margins ciliate, midrib slender, sheaths much 

 shorter than the internodes, lax, mouth not auricled, ligule of 

 long silky hairs; spikes ^-1 in., solitary or seemingly fas- 

 cicled in the axils of the 1., but individually from shortened 

 axilllary branches, ped. short, hairy ; sessile spikelets iV~T3- in. 

 diam., scaberulous. 



Common in the hot, drier parts of the Island. 



Tropics generally. 



A very curious grass. The spikes resemble a string of minute beads. 

 Except Phams, no Ceylon grass shows so great a dissimilarity between 

 the two forms of spikelet in the same species. 



32. MNESITHEA, Kunth. 



A slender, erect, perennial grass ; 1. narrow ; spikes solitary, 

 slender, rhachis articulate, fragile, internodes terete, ribbed, all 

 but a few upper with 2 equal and similar spikelets, sunk in 

 subopposite oblong cavities, separated by a hyaline often 

 evanescent septum, and with sometimes a minute glume of a 

 third spikelet on the upper margin of the internode; sessile 

 spikelets i-ftd., nearly as long as the internode; glumes 4, 

 I closing the mouth of the cavity, obliquely oblong, obtuse, 

 thinly coriaceous, smooth, margins narrowly incurved, II and 

 III as long as I, oblong, obtuse, hyaline, III paleate or not, 

 empty, IV rather smaller, oblong, obtuse, bisexual, palea 

 shorter than the glume; lodicules o; stam. 3, anth. linear; ov. 

 minute, styles and stigmas very small, not exserted; upper 

 spikelet seen only in the upper i-fld. internodes, pedicel 

 confluent with the walls of the internode, its margins marked 

 by 2 ribs ; glume I very minute, orbicular or broadly ovate, 

 flat, green, II very narrow or o; grain narrowly oblong, 

 compressed, embryo two-thirds its length. — Monotypic. 

 part v. P 



