409 Jour., Bom. Nat. Hist. Soc, Vol. XXXII, No. 3. [Jan. 15, 1928. 



awnless. Involucral glumes equal, lower more or less coriaceous or char- 

 taceous with a broad rounded back and subinflexed margins, usually muti- 

 cous, upper boat-shaped, keeled upwards, with bread hyaline ciliate margins, 

 muticous, mucronate or aristuiate. Floral glumes hyaline, of lower floret 

 2-nerved, of upper minutely 2-dentate, muticous or mucronulate or with a per- 

 fect or imperfect awn from the sinus. Pale minute, hyaline, nerveless. Lodi- 

 cules 2 glabrous. Stamens 3. Stigmas laterally exserted ; styles subterminal. 

 Grain oblong, slightly oblique at top. Pedicelled spikelet dorsally compressed ; 

 involucral glumes much thinner than in the sessile, like the floral glumes 

 usually awnless. 



Species about 7 in the tropics of the Old World. 



1. Leaves 5-13 cm. long. Panicle 15-18 cm. long ... 1. V. Lawsoni. 



2. Leaves 30-90 cm . long, Panicle up to over 30 



cm. long ... ... ... 2. V. zizanioides. 



1. Vetiveria Lawsoni, Blatter & McCann, nov. comb.— Andropogon Lawsoni, 

 Hook. f. F.B.I. vii,187. 



Description : Rootstock stout, horizontal. Stem erect, simple, slender, 

 internodes very long. Leaves chiefly subradical, 5-13 cm. by 5 mm., exactly 

 linear, rigid, curved, acute or obtuse, tips serrulate, base not contracted, mar- 

 gins ciliate, nerves 4-8, strong ; sheaths compressed, of lower very short, of 

 cauline very long, striate; ligule a ridge of hairs. Panicle 15-18 cm. long, 

 narrow, elongate, branches or peduncles of spikes opposite and fascicled, 

 branchlets slender, puberulous with a white scurf. Spikes 6-12 mm. long, pale 

 reddish, erect ; joints 6-8, very obliquely truncate, tips obscurely ciliate, pedi- 

 cels nearly equalling the spikelet, slender, compressed. Sessile spikelets 4 

 mm. long, linear-lanceolate, callus bearded with silky hairs. Lower involucral 

 glume linear, rigid, coriaceous, tip obtuse, bristly, keels muricate, scaberulous 

 margins inflexed, upper involucral glume cymbiform, tip 2-fid, awn longer 

 than the glume, base ciliate, keel pectinately ciliate above the middle. Lower 

 floral glume oblong, ciliate, nerveless, upper arched, linear, obtusely 2-dentate, 

 awn verv slender. Pale oblong, ciliate, nerveless. Anthers long. Pedicelled 

 spikelets male, longer and narrower than the .sessile, callus naked ; lower in- 

 volucral glume 3-nerved, awned, keels pectinately ciliate, upper acuminate, 

 awned. Floral glumes oblong, obtuse, ciliate. 



Locality : S. M. Country: Dharwar District, very common (Sedgwick 

 2170 !) ; Dharwar (McCann A277 !). 



2. Vetiveria zizanioides, Stapf in Kew Bull. (1906), 346-49, 362, in Fl. Trop. 

 Afr. ix, 157. — V. odorata, Virey in Journ. de Pharm. 1. ser. xiii, 499.— V. arundi- 

 nacea et muricata, Griseb., Fl. Brit., W. lnd. 559, 560. — Phalaris zizanioides, 

 Linn. Mant. Alt., 183. — Andropogon muricatus , Retz., Obs. iii, 43 ; Roxb. Fl. 

 lnd. i, 265 ■ Grah. Cat. Bomb. PI. 238 ; Grift. Ic. PI. As. t. 139, f. 57, t. 155, 

 f. l ; Dalz. and Gibs. Bomb. Fl. 302 ; Duthie Grass. N. W. lnd. 90, Fodd. 

 Grass. N. lnd. 36, t. 2i.—A. Festucoides, J. S. Presl in C. B. Presl Reliq. 

 Haenk. i, 340.— A. squarrosus, Hack, (non Linn, f.) var. genuinus, Hack, in 

 Monogr. Androp. 542-44.-^4. squarrosus, Hook. f. {non Linn, f.) in F. B. I. 

 vii, 186.— A squarrosus, Cooke {non Linn, f.) in Fl. Bomb. Pres. ii, 991. — 

 Agrostis verticillata, Lam. 111. Gen. i, 162.— Anatherum muricatum, Beauv. 

 Agrost. Expl. Planch. 15. 



J. D. Hooker and Cooke and many others have followed Hackel in calling 

 this plant Andropogon squarrosus, Linn. f. Stapf (in Kew Bull. 1906, 347) has 

 explained that this name applies to quite a different plant : ' No notice was 

 taken of Scheuchzer's description or of Petiver's and Du Bois's specimens, and 

 when Linnaeus, about 1770, x received the grass from Koemg he described it 

 as something new under the name Phalaris zizanioides. Koenig, however, also 

 sent specimens of the grass to Retzius, who published it as Andropogon muri- 

 catus 2 in 1783. This name, which was suggested by Koenig himself, was 

 subsequently adopted by Roxburgh and most other botanists. More recently, 3 

 however, it has been replaced by Andropogon squarrosus, a name adopted by 

 the younger Linnaeus * for a plant, also communicated by Koenig, who found it 



1 Linna3Us, Mant. Alt. (1771), 183. 



2 Retz. Observ. iii (1783), 43. 



3 Hackel, Andropog. in DC. Monogr. Phaner. vi (1889), 542. 



*Linn.f. Suppl. (1781), 433. 



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