31 Jour., Bom. Nat Hist. Soc. : Vol. XXXII, No. 1. [Aug. 1, 1927. 



Hochst. ex. Steud. Svn. PI. Glum.i, 365. — Andropogon elegantissimus , Steud. 

 Syn. PI. Glum, i, 365— Andropogon Griesebachii, Steud. Syn. PL Glum, i, 365. 



Description : Cke. I.e. 



Locality: Sind : (Woodrow).— Gujarat : Bhodir Maka, Cutch (Blatter 

 3747 !) ; Bnuj, Cutch (Blatter 3795 !) ; Rajkot, Kathiawar (Woodrow). 



Distribution : Upper Gametic Plain, Rajputana, W. Peninsula, Arabia, 

 Somaliland, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Sudan, Nubia, Cape de Verd Islands. 



18. Rottboellia, Linn. f. (Stapf. in Fl. Trop. Afr. ix, 72) 



Annual, usually coarse grasses, often with stilt-roots from the lowest nodes, 

 more or less branched, particularly upwards. Leaves large, linear-lanceolate, 

 rather wide ; ligule membranous, short. Racemes dorsiventral, with the spike- 

 lets placed anticously and laterally. Spikelets 2-nate on the nodes of the very 

 fragile rhachis of stout cylindric perfectly glabrous spike-like racemes which 

 end the stems and their branches, in the latter case spathe-supported, different 

 in sex and usually in size, colour and nervation except those of the uppermost 

 pairs which are barren, homomorphous and upwards increasingly reduced 

 forming a tail-like appendage to the raceme. Joints dorsally flattened below, 

 widely cup-shaped and hollow- d out upwards, more or less completely fused 

 with the pedicels along their posticuous angles. Sessile spikelets pale, triangular 

 in transverse section ; the narrow callus fused with the bases of the adjacent 

 joint and pedicel into a glabrous ring from the centre of which protrudes a 

 knob fitting into the cup-shaped hollow of the next lower joint, the whole 

 plexus falling together. Florets 2, lower male, upper bisexual, awnless. 

 Glumes equal: Lower coriaceous, flat on the back, with very narrow inflexed 

 margins, 2-keeled upwards ; upper boat-shaped, keeled upwards, acute. 

 Valves hyaline, 3-nerved. Valvules as long or almost as long as the valves, 

 hyaline, 2-nerved. Lodicules, 2, cuneate. Stamens 3. Stigmas suberect or 

 shortly laterally exserted above the middle of the spikelet. Grain broad-oblong 

 or ellipsoid, dorsally compressed ; hilum large, suprabasal ; embryo almost as 

 long as the grain. Pedicelied spikelet similar to the sessile, but more compressed, 

 green, striate, with two male florets, or smaller and more or less reduced. 



Species 2 or 3.— Tropics of the Old World. 



1. Rottboellia exaltata, Linn. f. Suppl. 1H ; Roxb. PI. Corom. t. 157 ; Fl. Ind. 

 i, 354 ; Duthie Grass. N.W. Ind. 17; Hack. Monoer. Androp. 293; Hook. f. 

 in F.B I. vii, 156 ; Cke. ii, 955. — R. exaltata, var. genuina. Schweinf. in Hohnel 

 Disc. Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie, ii, App. 35'?.— R. exaltata, f arundinacea, 

 Plack. in Bot. Soc. Brot. v, 215.— R. arundinacea, Hochst. ex A. Rich. Tent. 

 Fl. Abyss, ii, ±\\.—Stegosia ccchinchinensis, Lour. Fl. Cochinch. 51. — Stegosia 

 exaltata. Nash in Amer. Fl. xvii, i, 84. 



Description : Cke. I.e. 



Locality: Ron/can: Dohe forest, Thana Dist. (Ryan 711 !).— Deccan : 

 Agricultural College Farm (Herb. Econ. Bot. Poona !) ; Poona (Bhide !, Cooke, 

 Woodrow 2 !) ; Purandhar 4,000 ft. (McCann 5591 !).— S. M. Country : Dharwar, 

 in field (Sedgwick 5469 ! ) — Kanara : Hattikeri, near Karwar (Hallberg and 

 McCann A74 !). 



Distribution : India, Andamans, Ceylon, China, Malaya, Australia, Africa. 



var robusta, Hook, f . in F.B.I vii, 156. 



Description : Leaf-base more cordately confluent with the sheath. Spikes 

 stouter below, slender above the mi Idle. Spikelets in upper half distichously 

 imbricate, longer than the joints, fertile nearly to the tip Pales of upper floral 

 glume auricled at the base. 



Locality : Poona (Woodrow).— We have not seen this plant. 



Distribution : Malabar, Palamcotta- 



19. Ophiurus, Gaertn. partim ; R. Br. (Stapf Fl. Trop. Afr. ix, 74) 



Annual (?) or perennial, sometimes very coarse grasses, usually much branch- 

 ed upwards. Leaves linear to lanceolate, short to very long, conduplicate or con- 

 volute in bud, then flat ; ligules very .short, membranous. Racemes dorsiventral. 

 Spikelets solitary on the nodes of the fragile rhachis of slender cylindric spikes 

 which end the stems and their usually fascicled spathe-supported branches, 

 their pedicelied companions suppressed or rudimentary and very minute and the 

 pedicels completely fused with the joints, both forming together a deeply 



[18] 



