^lytrophorus.] Graminece. 287 



styles very short, free, stigmas short, densely penicillate, 

 -exserted at the sides of the spikelet ; grain terete. — Sp. (?) ; 

 2 in Fl. B. Ind. 



P. Karka, Trin. ex Steud. Nom. Ed. II. ii. 324 (1841). Nala- 

 gras, 6". 



P. Roxburghiz, Steud.; Thw. Enum. 370. C. P. 304. 

 Fl. B. Ind. vii. 304 (not given for Ceylon). 



Stems 8-12 ft. high, smooth, simple or branched, covered 

 with the l.-sheaths; 1. close together, bifarious, sword-shaped, 

 finely acuminate, up to i| in. broad, coriaceous, quite smooth, 

 veins indistinct, base contracted, margins smooth, sheath 

 coriaceous, mouth not auricled, ligule o ; panicle 1-2 ft., 

 erect, oblong, branches widely spreading, alt., filiform ; pedicels 

 capillary, quite smooth ; spikelets when fully expanded about 

 ^ in. broad across the glumes; glume II i in. long, twice as 

 long as I, fig. glumes about | in. long, gradually tapering 

 from the base to the apex, palea iV in. l° n g 5 keels smooth; 

 anth. linear-oblong; ov. minute. 



Banks of canals and streams ; common. Spikelets greyish-green. 



Trop. and Subtrop. Asia, Africa, and America. 



Ferguson describes the rootstock as 75 ft. long in the Bolgoda lake. 

 Pipes are made of the stems, of which, when split open, the Durma mats 

 of Bengal are made. 



65. ELYTSOPKORVS, Beam/. 

 An annual, erect, glabrous grass; 1. very narrow, flat; infl. 

 of globose clusters of most minute sessile spikelets, crowded 

 together in long cylindric continuous or interrupted catkin- 

 like spikes, or rarely on the short spike-like branches of a very 

 contracted raceme; spikelets short (many imperfect, or 

 reduced to empty glumes), strongly laterally compressed, 

 not articulate at the base, 4-6-fld., rhachilla very short, 

 articulate at the base and between the fig. glumes, but not 

 beyond the upper; glumes I and II subequal, lanceolate, 

 aristately acuminate, empty, hyaline, 1 -veined, glabrous or 

 ciliate, keeled, flg. glumes rather larger, ovate, long-awned, 

 strongly 3-veined, margins .ciliate, uppermost neuter, palea 

 shorter than the glume, very broad, truncately 3-lobed, lobes 

 ciliate, keels distant, winged, smooth; lodicules 2, obliquely 

 oblong; stam. 1-3, anth. minute; styles free, long, stigmatic 

 hairs very short; grain minute, fusiform or narrowly oblong, 

 free, pericarp loose at both ends. — Monotypic. 



