626 



shorter than the florets, acute, muticous, many-nerred, lower 

 smaller : florets alternate, somewhat distant, 2-valved, hermaphro- 

 dite, upper ones occasionally ahortive : lower valve conformable to 

 the glumes, upper one almost equal, compressed, 2-keeled, back 

 narrow, channelled, sides flat, connivent : scales 3, conspicuous, 

 membranaceous, ovate : stamens 3 : anthers linear, deeply cleft at 

 the base : ovary glabrous, styles 2 — 3, concrete at the base : stigmas 

 plumose : caryopsis oblong, compressed, posticously deeply 1-fur- 

 rowed, free. — ^Fruticose or arborescent grasses, branches fasciculately 

 half-verticeUed from the nodes': leaves with the petioles jointed at 

 the base. 



(1) A. msPiDA. fStmidel.J 



Ident. Steudel 1. c. p. 335.— Herb. Hohenhack Ind. Or. 1282. 



Spec. Chas. Branches somewhat verticelled, sheathed, leafy: 

 sheaths hispid, scabrous, or glabrescent on the same branchlet, 

 imbricated, usually bristly at the mouth : leaves sub-alternate, 

 distichous, glaucescent, uiiequal, broad-lanceolate, acuminate, some- 

 what pointed : panicles many among the branches, very unequal, 

 sessile and pedimcled : spikelets 2 — 5-flowered : glumes twice 

 shorter than the florets, acuminate or obtuse : valves hispidulous, 

 obtuse, mucronulate. 



Sispara forests, Neilgherries. 



SJBCT. XI. BOTTBOEIililACI}^. 



Inflorescence spiked, rhachis in many jointed : spikelets 1 — 2- 

 flowered, very rarely 3 -flowered, placed in the hollow of the 

 rhachis, solitary or twin, one pedicelled, often withering : one 

 flower of either 2-flowered spikelet incomplete : glumes 1 — 2, or 

 none, coriaceous : palese membranaceous, seldom awned : styles 

 1 — 2, very short or wanting. 



GENUS XLIV. OROPETIUM. 



Tviandrla Di^ynla. Sex: Syst: 



Gen. Char. Spike compressed, not jointed, bifarious : spikelets 

 compressed in the marginal hollows of the rhachis, flexuose, 

 solitary, sessile, alternate, 1 -flowered, rudiments of the upper 

 flower hairy, minute : glumes 3, muticous, lower one minute, 

 ovate, thinly membranaceous, upper la]!iceolate,i-,^Hghtly convex, 

 coriaceous, longer than the flower : paleae 2, muticous, nearly 

 equal, lower one keeled and boat-shaped, upper 2-keeled i stigmas 

 somewhat penicilliform : scales 2, sub-cuneatey glabrous. 



