388 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
Poa subsecunda Herb. Ham. ex Wall. Oat. n. 3828 D. 
Poa tortuosa Spreng. Svst. Veg. I, 345. 
Megastachya Eragrostis Beauv. Agrost. 74 ?• 
Briza Eragrostis Linn. Sp. PI. 70 ; Schreb. Beschr. Graes. II, 74. 
Briza oblonga Moench. Meth. 185. 
Eragrostis Wall. Cat. n. 3828, 3837. 
Description Annual ; stems 1-3 feet high, usually stout and 
branched, leafy, erect or geniculately ascending, smooth, polished. 
Leaves reaching 8 by J inch, narrowed to a fine point, flat, smooth, 
flaccid, glandular along the margins ; sheaths sparingly bearded ; ligule 
a ciliolate ridge. 
Panicle 2-8 inches long, erect, oblong or ovate-oblong, open or some- 
times contracted, usually stiff ; rhachis strict, rather stout, smooth ; 
branches spreading or suberect, capillary, stiff or flexuose, again 
branching from near the base, the branchlets short, capillary. Spikelets 
A-J inch long with 6-8 glumes, to linear oblong, rather narrowed 
upwards, and inch long or more with many (up to 60) glumes, 
olive grey or yellowish ; rhachilla tough, zigzag, the internodes short, 
smooth. Involucral glumes ovate, acute, with scabrid keels; lower 
smaller than the upper, 1- (sometimes 3-) nerved ; upper slightly larger 
than the lower, 3-nerved ; floral glumes broadly ovate, acute, sometimes 
apiculate, inch long, strongly nerved ; palea obovate, much curved, 
shorter than its glume, with ciliolate keels. Stamens 3 ; anthers 
inch long. 
Grain globose, ^ inch in diameter, microscopically rugulose, 
reddish-brown. 
Locality /—Aden (Birdw.). 
Distribution : — -S. Europe, tropical and subtropical Asia, ascending 
to 5,200 feet in the Himalaya. 
11. Desmostachya Stapf. 1 
Perennial, branched at the base ; branches covered with leathery 
sheaths at or above the base and with a tuft of coarse leaves. 
1 Stapf. (in This.-Dyer FI. Cap. VII, 632) has the following remark regarding this 
new genus : v “ The only species of this genus D. bipinnata Stapf, was originally described 
as Uniola bipinnata by Linnaeus. Subsequently it has been redescribed in, or referred to, 
at least 6 other genera, viz., Poa, Briza, Cynosurus, Eragrostis aud Leptochloa. Hochstetter 
pointed out the affinity to the latter genus in Flora, 1855, 422. My recent researches in 
Eragrostis have convinced me that it is one of the links which connect Eragroste® and 
Chloride® (especially the Leptochloa group), and I have (following Sir Joseph Hooker’s 
example in the case of Myriostachys) now separated Desmostachya generically from 
Eragrostis, where, under the name of E. cvnosuroides, Beauv., it represented a separate 
section, Desmostachya in Hook. f. F-l. Brit. Ind. ” 
