Ij8 Graminea: [Eleusine.. 



quite smooth, branching, leafy, branches erect, root-fibres 

 wiry; 1. much shorter than the stem, erect, linear-lanceolate,, 

 acuminate, up to \ in. broad, flat, thin, flaccid, surfaces and 

 margins nearly quite smooth, base rounded, sheaths mostly 

 shorter than the internodes, slender, smooth, auricles at 

 mouth small, ligule a ridge of short hairs ; spikes few,, 

 \-2\ in., scattered towards the top of a slender peduncle,, 

 solitary, opposite or terminal and digitate, rhachis very 

 slender, trigonous, angles minutely scaberulous, bearing 2 

 rows of sessile, imbricating spikelets from base to tip ; spike- 

 lets ovate or oblong, \-\ in. long, pale green, 6-12-fid. ; 

 glumes membranous, spreading, I and II i-veined, keels 

 smooth, tips toothed, I oblong-ovate, cuspidate, II larger,, 

 ovate, awn half as long as the glume, fig. glumes sessile on 

 a very short glabrous rhachilla, ovate-oblong, \-\ in. long, 

 tip entire or notched, veins slender, median ending in a short, 

 straight awn, palea shorter than the glume, keels faintly 

 scabjid ; grain very small, oblong, pericarp evanescent, seed' 

 rugose. 



Uva Province ; Ella Pass (Trimen). Spikes green. 



Tropical Asia, Africa, and Australia. 



A common plant in the plains of India. It is remarkable that but one 

 habitat for it should have hitherto been found in Ceylon. 



. 3. E. brevifolia, Br. in Wall. Cat. n. 3815 (1828). 

 Eragrostis brevifolia, Benth. in Hook. Ic. PI. xiv. 51 in nota. Trim- 

 Cat. Ceyl. PI. 109. Dactylis brevifolia, Keen. ; Roxb. Fl. Ind. i. 341. 

 C. P. 3250. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 295 (not given from Ceylon). Trin. Fund. Agrost. t. 12 

 (^JEluropus Icevis). 



Annual, glabrous; stems many, spreading from the root 

 and ascending from a decumbent base, 3-7 in. high, simple 

 and slender, or sometimes more robust and proliferously 

 branched, leafy, internodes except the terminal short, root- 

 fibres capillary; 1. short, \-2 in., rarely longer, \-\ in. broad,, 

 linear, acute, flat, smooth or scaberulous, base rounded or 

 subcordate ; sheaths compressed, mouth hardly auricled,. 

 ligule a short, hyaline, ciliate membrane ; spikes many, 

 \— \ in. long, sessile in a dense globose head ^-f in. diam.,. 

 rarely reduced to two ; spikelets 2-seriate, sessile, \-\ in. 

 long, ovate or oblong, 4-10-fld. ; glumes I and II mem- 

 branous, glabrous, ovate-oblong, acuminate, shortly awned, 

 I 1 -veined, keel scabrid, II larger, 3-7-veined, keel smooth, 

 fig. glumes ovate, acute, cuspidate, veins densely villously 

 bearded below the middle, palea oblong, truncate, villously 

 ciliate ; seed very small, from broadly oblong or nearly 

 orbicular to ovate or ovate-cordate, concavo-convex, trans- 



