Ischcemum."] GvCMtineCB. 2 1 3 



sparsely hairy on both surfaces, margins scabrous, base 

 rounded, sometimes tomentose, uppermost 1. sometimes 

 reduced to a spathiform lanceolate sheath 3-4 in. long 

 partially enclosing the spikes, sheaths loosely compressed, 

 .glabrous, mouth auricled, auricles membranous, confluent with 

 the truncate ligule; spikes 2, 1-3 in. long, erect, striate, 

 fragile, internodes \-\ as long as the sessile spikelets, sub- 

 •clavate, trigonous, ciliate on the dorsal angle ; spikelets \-\ in. 

 long, linear-obiong, nearly glabrous or villous, sessile and 

 pedicelled pressed together, the very short thick pedicel 

 confluent with the thick sparsely bristly callus of the sessile ; 

 .glume I of sessile spikelet cartilaginous and shining below 

 the middle and there crossed by 3-5 deep, convex, almost 

 imbricating smooth ridges, above the middle flattened, thinner, 

 •dimidiate - ovate, veins green, anastomosing, margins thick 

 narrowly incurved, ciliolate, outer narrowly winged, II 

 •coriaceous, lanceolate, acuminate, laterally compressed, 

 keeled, scaberulous, keel with a narrow ciliolate wing below 

 the tip, III and IV and paleas all eciliate, III ovate-lanceo- 

 Hate, acuminate, hyaline, 1-3-veined, male or neuter, palea 

 narrower, hyaline, 2-veined, IV shorter, deeply cleft into 2 

 lanceolate acute lobes, base 3-veined, awn up to § in., palea 

 linear - lanceolate ; lodicules minute, cuneate ; pedicelled 

 spikelet very variable, glume I like the sessile or with 

 obscure transverse ridges, and a broader more oblique upper 

 half, glumes I to III when most perfect are as in the sessile 

 spikelet, but II not keeled or ciliate, and IV oblong, obtuse, 

 awnless; grain broadly elliptic-oblong, compressed, brown, 

 T V in. long. 



Hotter parts of the Island. 



India, Andaman Islds., Malaya, China. 



The various forms assumed by the pedicelled spikelet are puzzling ; 

 it very frequently ripens a grain. Hackel (who had not seen Ceylon 

 specimens) describes (under the genus) the pedicelled spikelet as articulate 

 on ihe pedicel, which it is not in /. rugosum and aristatum, for it 

 falls away with the sessile glume and internode of the spike ; as does the 

 grain from the glumes. There are two forms of foliage in this species 

 in Herb. Peraden. ; one, the original plant, is named by Thwaites from 

 Kara Kada Walla, Gardner (C. P. 870), with very narrow leaves, obscure 

 veins, and long ligule; the other, from Mannar district, collected and 

 mamed by Trimen (not numbered), with leaves up to \ in. broad, 4 or 

 •more pairs of rather strong lateral veins and a shorter ligule. The spikes 

 and spikelets of the two appear to be identical. 



3. *I. semisag-ittatum, Roxb. Hort. Beng.Z (1814); Fl.Ind.\. 

 320 (1832). 



I. conjugation, Roxb. ; Thw. Enum. 365. C. P. 3263. 

 Fl. B. Ind. vii. 130. 



