F*eb. 15, 1929.] Revision of the Flora of the Bombay Presidency 241 



Description : An annual grass. Stems 15-30 cm. high, many ascending from 

 the root, simple or proliferously branched, slender. Leaves 2'5-75 cm. long, 

 very slender, curved, convolute, rigid, smooth. Panicle 7-15 cm. long, very 

 narrow, subeylindric ; branches very short, crowded or sometimes with a few 

 remote lower down on the stem, ascending from a naked base and bearing a 

 dense oblong fascicle of spikelets ; rhachis smooth, branches scaberulons. 

 Spikelets (excl. awns) 6 mm. long, very short-pedicelled, pale green or straw- 

 eoloured. Lower involucral glume 5 mm. long, shortly awned, keel scaberu- 

 lous : upper 6 mm. long, tip 2 toothed below the awn. Floral glume scaberu- 

 lous, callus shortly bearded, awn obscurely articulate with the glume, column 

 nearly as long as the glume, slender, smooth, branches capillary, rather short, 

 central one about 12 mm. long. 



Locality : Sind : Sehwan to Laki, foot of hills (Sabnis B235 !). — Khandesh : 

 W. Khandesh (Blatter!). 



Distribution : Punjab, Sind, Rajputana, Khandesh, S. India, Arabia, tro- 

 pical Africa. 



5. Aristida pogonoptila, Boiss. Fl. Or. v (1884), 496; Henrard I.e. ii (1927), 

 456. — Arthratherum bogonoptilum, Jaub. and Spach 111. PI. Or. iv (1850-53), 

 56, t. 337. 



Description : A perennial grass. Rhizome short, oblique, branching. Stems 

 15^5 cm. high, strict or geniculate, erect, simple or sparsely branching, 

 slender, terete, glabrous, smooth, obsoletely and finely striate, few-noded, leafy 

 at the base and covered with imbricate sheaths. Uppermost internode at 

 flowering time scarcely longer than the sheath ; lower internodes longer than 

 the sheaths. Nodes quite glabrous, mostly rufescent. Leaves glaucescent, 

 thin, more or less flexuose or rarely rigid, keelless. on the back finely papillose, 

 articulate on the sheath. Lower leaves 7-25 cm. long, the uppermost very 

 often short (2*5-5 cm ). Lowest sheaths aphyllous, chartaceous, straw-colour- 

 ed, persistent, subcomplicate, striate, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, mostly 

 acuminate. Proliferous sheaths rotund-truncate, keelless, nerved, densely 

 ciliate with long, white hairs at the apex, densely bearded at the mouth with a 

 ring of short bristles, otherwise glabrous, the upper ones herbaceous, tubular- 

 involute. No ligule. Panicle 7" 5-15 cm. long, oblong, somewhat lax, simple 

 and made up of many spikelets. Rhachis filiform, continuous, semiterete, 

 scabrous, strict. Branchlets capillary, flexuose, scabrous, alternate, disti- 

 chous ; the spikelets arranged in racemes, pedicelled, mostly 3-5, unequal, 

 getting shorter upwards ; pedicels capillary, scabrous, thickened at the 

 apex, most of them longer than the glume. Glumes 3. Involucral glumes 

 awnless, of unequal length, subnavicular, 3-nerved, glabrous or with 

 scattered hairs on the back and the margins. Lower one shorter, 

 usually fimbriolate at the apex ; upper one inserted slightly higher up, 

 narrower than the lower one and about 2 mm. longer, slightly narrowed at the 

 base, emarginate at the apex. Floral glume (including the stalk and awn) 

 about 5 cm. long. Stalk stout, turbinate, densely setulose, bearded-hirsute at 

 the apex. Inner pale tubular-involute, thinly 3-nerved, chartaceous, keelless, 

 oblong, glabrous, cinereous or black-violet, long awned, on the back papillose- 

 scabrous, especially from the middle to the apex, obtusely emarginate after the 

 awn has fallen. Awn deciduous, setaceous-subulate, far below the middle 

 geniculate and trifurcate ; the undivided part almost as long as the glume, 

 contorted, erect, canaliculate, filiform, papillose-scabrous, near the apex cons- 

 picuously bearded-hirsute, otherwise naked, or laxly hairy ; lateral awns 

 capillary, naked, scabrous, more or less diverging, strict, about i the length of 

 the central one and much thinner ; central awn strict, long-plumose, at the 

 base setaceous-filiform, upwards capillary. Inner pale minute, membranous, 

 hyaline, nerveless, involute, keelless, glabrous, cuneate-obovate, truncate or 

 rotundate at the apex, obsoletely crenulate. Lodicules 2, submembranous, 

 glabrous, finely striate, obliquely ovate, obtuse. Stamens 3. Filaments capil- 

 lary. Anthers yellowish, glabrous, linear, elongate, emarginate at apex and 

 base. Ovary obovate ; quite glabrous. Styles 2, terminal, elongate, filiform, 

 densely plumose, laterally exserted. 



Hook. f. in F.B.I, vii, 228 included this species under A. hirtigluma, Steud. 

 but, according to Henrard, it ' differs in the glabrous glumes, in the shorter 

 column, more hairy and barbulate at the point of insertion of the 3 awns and 

 in the more loosely and longer plumose central awn, without a naked tip.' 



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