886 
FLOUA OF ADEN. 
articulate on the pedicels ; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes 
and between the valves or tough and persistent, glabrous, sometimes 
more or less scaberuloas, very larely minutely hairy. Florets 2 to 
many, hermaphrodite or the uppermost reduced. Glumes unequal or 
equal, usually membranous, 1 -nerved, or the upper sometimes 
3-nerved, keeled, persistent, or deciduous. Valves more or less imbri- 
cate, ovate to lanceolate, acute or obtuse, entire, muticous, membranous 
to chartaceous, 3-nerved, glabrous, very rarely minutely pubescent ; side 
nerves short or almost percurrent. Palea equal to the valves or slightly 
shorter, membranous, 2-keeled, deciduous or persistent on the rhachilla. 
Lodicules 2, small, cuneate, more or less fleshy. Stamens 3, rarely 2. 
Ovary glabrous ; styles distinct ; stigmas plumose, laterally exserted. 
Grain enclosed by the scarcely altered valve and palea and deciduous 
with them, or more commonly failing with the deciduous valve, leaving 
the more or less persistent palea behind, oblong to obovoid or globose, 
round or very obtusely triquetrous or quadrangular in cross section ; 
pericarp thin, sometimes slightly swelling or separating ; embryo often | 
as long as the grain ; hilum punctiform, basal. 
Species about 100. 
Distribution : — Warm parts of the world. 
Rhachilla of spikelets more or less jointed and breaking up from 
above downwards ... . . . . . 1. E. ciliaris. 
Rhachilla of spikelets tough, persistent . . „ e . 2. E. major. 
1. Eragrostis ciliaris Link. Hort. Bot. Berol. I, 192 ; Trin. Gram. 
Gen. 397, et in M£m. Acad. Pdtersb. ser. 6, I, 397 ; Nees FL Afr. Austr. 
413; Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. I, 265 ; Anderss. in Peters Reise Mossamb. 
Bot. 558 ; Anders. Journ. Linn. Soc. V, Suppl., p. 41 ; Baker FI. Maurit. 
456; Durand & Schinz Consp. FI. Afr. V, 881; Hook. FI. Brit. Ind. 
VII, 314; Cooke FL Bomb. Pres. II, 1023. 
Eragrostis lobata Trin. in Mem. Acad. Petersb. ser. 6, I (1831) 396. 
Eragrostis lepida Ilochst. ex A. Rich. Tent. FI. Abyss. II, 424. 
Eragrostis pulchella Pari, in Hook. Niger FI. 188. 
Poa ciliaris Linn. Sp. PI. 102 ; Jacq. Ic. PI. Rar. II, t. 304 ; Kunth. 
Enum. I, 337 ; A. Rich. i.c. 423 ; Boiss. FI. Or. V, 582. 
Megastacbya ciliaris Beauv. Agrost. 167 ; Roem. & Schult. Syst. II, 
592. 
Description Annual or subperennial (?), tufted ; culms geniculate, 
ascending, often from a procumbent base, slender, |-2 feet long, glabrous, 
smooth, simple or branched below, about 3-noded, internodes exserted ; 
sheaths striate, tight, glabrous or scantily hairy, bearded with long hairs 
at the mouth ; ligule a fringe of short hairs ; blades linear, tapering to 
