126 cLiiui. GRAMiNE^. (J. D. Hooker.) [Erianthus. 



base, rigid, flat, smooth, margins scabrid ; sheath glabrous, month fimbriate; lignle 

 very short, truncate. Pontcie oblong or fan-shaped ; raehis hairy; spikgs crowded, 

 lower 3-5 in. strict slender, joints many and pedicels = i spikelet or shorter, 

 Tillous with long white hairs. Spikelets darls colrd. below paler above ; gl. I 

 dorsally subchannelled, soaberulous, ciliate upwards, 1-nerved between the keels ; 

 II ehartaceous, lanceolate, margins hyaline, III^I, linear-lanceolate, base mem- 

 branous coloured, hyaline above; IV = ^ II, hyaline, 3-nerved; palea small, 

 ovate, obtuse, glabrous. — Hardly different from a FolUnia. 



TJNDBSOEIBED SPECIES. 

 E. vulpinus, Sees in Soyle III. PI. Himal. 417. 



37. XSCHSIMCVnX, Linn. 



Annual or perennial grasses. Spikelets nsoally 2-fld.,in solitary digi. 

 tate or fascicled articulate fragile spikes, binate, a sessile and pedicelled. 

 Sessile spi/celets, Glumes 4, 1 oblong or lanceolate, flat, with inflexed margins, 

 truncate or 2-cuspidate, awnleas ; II as long as I but narrower, concave, 

 acute obtuse or awned; III hyaline, rarely ehartaceous, paleate, trian- 

 drous, palea narrow ciliate ; IV hyaline, bisexual or fern., usually cleft, 

 awned (rarely awnless), awn inserted in the cleft, or by a minute point 

 below it, branching into 3-nerves ; palea linear-lanceolate. Pedicelled 

 spikelet, like the sessile, or broader, often imperfect. Lodicules cuneate- 

 quadrate. Anthers linear. Styles long, stigmas long or short. — Species 

 about 40, chiefly tropical. 



IscluBnuum differs from PolUnia in the much larger gl. IV. of the sessile spikelet 

 which is usually cleft into lanceolate lobes, and, except in I. angustifolium, in the 

 longer palea of that gl. I find that Haekel's sectional character founded on the shape 

 of the joints is unworkable. 



Sect. I. EuischjEMum. Spikes 2-3, rarely more. 01. I of sessile 

 spikelets dorsally flat, not deeply channelled or depressed along the mesial 

 Ime. (See also I. robustum.) 



* Margins of gl. I narrowly inflexed or incurved from base to apex. 



+ Leaves rounded at the base, sessile on the sheath. 



§ Pedicel ofwpper spikelet not § the length of the lower, spikelets. 



1. aristatuxn, lAnn. Sp. PI. 1049 {in part) ; perennial, leaves 

 sessile long narrow, spikes 2-3 2-5 in., gl. I of sessile spikelet nearly flat 

 oblong obtuse or notched with 2-4 marginal nodules or low transverse 

 ridges, IV deeply 2-fid, awn geniculately inserted at the cleft, upper spike- 

 let dimidiate-ovate. Kunth Enum. PI. i. 612, Suppl. 421 ; Hack. Monogr. 

 Androp. 202. I. imberbe, Metz. Ohs. vi. 35. — Spodiopogon, Wall. Cat. 

 8861 (= vars. imhricatum, & elatwm). 



Throughout the Plains and lower Hills of India, from Sikkim and Bengal to 

 Burma, and southwd. through the Deccan Peninsula to Cbtion. — Disteib. China, 

 Malaya. 



Stem 1-4 ft., stout or slender, erect or decumbent at the base, simple or 

 branched above. Leaves 4-10 in. by ^1^ in., finely acuminate, glabrous or silkily 

 hairy, base rounded or narrowed rarely snbpetiolate ; sheath naked or hirsute ; lignle 

 short or 0. Spikes stout or rather slender, internodes much shorter than the spike- 



