214 Grammece. [Ischcemum* 



Annual ; stem 1-2 ft., slender, flaccid, prostrate and 

 branching below, rooting at the lower nodes, internodes long, 

 nodes glabrous or hairy; 1. 3-5 in., oblong- or linear-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, tips capillary, base auricled, broadly cordate lunate 

 or sagittate, with a filiform petiole \-\\ in. long, flat, glabrous 

 or sparsely hairy, margins scabrid, midrib slender, veins 3-5 

 pairs, bases descending into the auricles, sheaths loose, often 

 ventricose, of uppermost 1. usually 2-3 in., spathiform, margins 

 broadly auricled, mouth and truncate ligule membranous ; 

 spikes 2, i-2i in. long, more or less softly villous all over 

 with long white or grey hairs, fragile, internodes and pedicels 

 much shorter than the spikelets, trigonous, inflated ; sessile- 

 spikelet \-\ in., callus short, thick ; glume I, ovate, convex, 

 tip 2-toothed, margins narrowly incurved, lower half rather 

 thick, transversely obscurely ridged, ridges ending in marginal 

 nodules, upper thinner with green veins and ciliolate margins,, 

 II rather coriaceous, oblong, obtuse, keeled, softly ciliate, 

 dorsally villous, III ovate, acuminate, 1-3 veined, scaberulous 

 above, paleate, male, palea linear-oblong, hyaline 2-veined, 

 IV fern., cleft to below the middle into linear lobes, base 

 3-veined, awn about \ in., palea linear-oblong, truncate 

 2-veined; lodicules cuneate ; anth. \ in.; styles and stigmas- 

 short ; pedicelled spikelet narrower than the sessile, glume I 

 narrowly oblong, not ridged, II and III and paleas as in the 

 sessile spikelet, IV as long as II, narrowly oblong, tip 

 2-toothed with a minute awn, III male, IV fern. 



Colombo, on debris thrown out from the bazaars (Ferguson). 



Bengal and the Deccan. 



This is the Ceylon /. conjugatum, Roxb., of Thvvaites, introduced into 

 Hackel's monograph, Fl. B. Ind., as a Ceylon plant. It is, I think,. 

 I. semisagittatum var. dasyanthum, Hack. The only difference given by 

 Roxburgh between /. conjugatum and /. semisagittatum is, that in the 

 former the two spikes are ' united at the base, continuing close, as if 

 one.' This character does not hold good, and is not alluded to by 

 Hackel, who places the two species under different subdivisions, that 

 including conjugatum having 2-4 marginal nodules on glume I of the- 

 sessile spikelet, whilst in semisagittatum glume I is transversely rugose 

 with close-set elevated ridges. But neither of these characters is con- 

 stant in Indian specimens, and the Ceylon ones agree with neither, for 

 they have very low ridges and marginal nodules. The two plants are- 

 undoubtedly co-specific, as Hackel suspects by his remark under /. semi- 

 sagittatum, '/. conjugate, Roxb., satis affine.' 



4. I. commutation, Hack. Monogr. Androp. 209 (1889). 

 /. semisagittatum, Thw. Enum. 365 (non Roxb.). C. P. 2625. 

 Fl. B. Ind. vii. 131. 



Perennial; stems 1-2 ft, slender, ascending from a 

 decumbent base, glabrous; 1. 1-3 by \-\, linear or oblong- 



