288 Gramine<Z. [Myriostackya, 



E. articulatus, Beauv. Agrost. 64 (1812). 

 Thw. Enum. 374. C. P. 935. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 306. Beauv. I.e. t. 14, f. 2. Duthie, Fodd. Grass. 

 N.W. Ind. t. 72. 



Stem 6-30 in., erect from the densely fibrous root, as thick 

 as a crow-quill or less; 1. longer or shorter than the stem, 

 T5~| in. broad, smooth, flaccid, base narrow, sheaths membra- 

 nous, loose, mouth not auricled, ligule o; infl. 6-12 in. long, 

 often longer than the rest of the plant, rhachis strict, balls of 

 spikelets \-\ in. diam., soft, encircling the rhachis; spikelets 

 broader than long, |~g- in. across the awns. 



Warmer parts of the Island ; common, especially in paddy fields.. 

 Infl. pale green or white. 



Trop. Asia, Africa, and Australia. 



66. MYRIOSTACKYA, Hook. f. 

 A tall, very stout, perennial, glabrous, marsh grass ; root- 

 stock thick, spongy, giving off vermiform roots clothed with 

 branching capillary root-fibres ; stem erect, simple or sparingly 

 branched ; 1. chiefly radical, very long, linear, flat, coriaceous,, 

 smooth, basal sheaths compressed, equitant; spikelets innu- 

 merable, strongly laterally compressed, 6-20-fld., distichously 

 racemed on the short, crowded, filiform branches of a long, 

 narrow, erect, thyrsiform panicle with a stout rhachis, shortly 

 pedicelled, not articulate on the pedicels which are articulate 

 on the branches, rhachilla very stout, shortly produced 

 between the fig. glumes but not beyond the uppermost 

 (neuter) glume; glumes all coriaceous and persistent, I and 

 II empty, subequal, 1 -veined, lanceolate, tapering into rigid 

 awns, flg. glumes quite glabrous, ovate-lanceolate, 3-veined, 

 narrowed into a short, very stout, scabrid awn, keel smooth, 

 callus very short, palea chartaceous, as long as the glume,, 

 acuminate, 2-toothed, keels ciliate ; lodicules very minute, 

 truncate; stam. 3, anth. linear-oblong; ov. globose, styles 

 short, distant at the base, stigmas long, penicillate, laterally 

 exserted ; grain obliquely ovoid, subterete, embryo large. — 

 Monotypic. 



BX. Wig-htiana, Hook. f. in Fl. B. Ind. vii. 327 (1896). 



Eragrostis Wightiana, Benth. in Hook. Ic. PL xiv. 62. Trim, in 

 Journ. Bot. 1889, 171. 



Fl. B. Ind. 1. c. Benth. I.e. t. 1381. 



Rootstock short, densely covered with roots ; stem with 

 the l.-sheaths as thick as the thumb at the base, and as a 



