416 
CL VII. GKAMINEiE (Stapf). 
\Themeda. 
upper membranous, very rarely suppressed. Both florets present 
or one or both suppressed : their valves hyaline, the upper with or 
without a valvule. Pedicelled spikelets of the heterogamous pairs 
similar to those of the homogamous pairs, but narrower. — Annual or 
perennial, usually coarse grasses, with scanty or compound to 
decompound spatheate panicles and scattered or more or less crowded 
and often glomerate short 1- or 2- (very rarely 3-) awned or awnless 
monostachya. 
Species about 15-10, all natives of the tropical and subtropical region of 
the Old World, mostly Indo-Malayan. 
Perennial ; involucral spikelets 4-7 lin. long, glabrous or 
more or less irregularly beset with tubercle -based hairs 1. T. triandra. 
Annual ; involucral spikelets 2|-3^ lin. long, always with a 
row of rigid bristles along the flexures near the tips, 
the bristles springing from coarse pale tubercles ... 2. T. qnadrivalvi*. 
1. T. triandra, Forsl:. FI. JEgypt.-Ardb. cxxiii. and 178. Perennial, 
1^-4 ft. high, densely csespitose, often with a short coat of fibres 
(the withered remains of the basal sheaths) at the base, innovations 
intra vaginal. Culms somewhat slender, glabrous (very rarely softly 
hairy), with or without a glaucous bloom below the nodes, terete 
or more often slightly compressed downwards, erect or geniculate- 
ascending, few- to many-noded below the panicle, often with short 
barren branches, forming bunches of leaves, from the lower and 
intermediate nodes. Leaf -sheaths more or less compressed and 
keeled, particularly the lowest, the upper terete, tight, much shorter 
than the internodes, glabrous, more rarely and usually sparingly 
hairy, very rarely bearded at the nodes ; ligules scarious, ciliolate, 
truncate, very short, J-f lin. long ; blades firm, folded in bud, then 
flat, linear from an equally wide or slightly wider and somewhat 
rounded clasping base, those of the basal leaves and the innovations 
short, 2-3 in. by 1-2J lin., shortly tapering, acute or subacute or 
like the others elongated and long-tapering to a slender point, those 
of the culm-leaves up to over 6 (rarely over 12) in. long, mostly 
1- 2, occasionally 3 or even 4 lin. wide, green or more or less glaucous 
to very glaucous, glabrous or sparingly hairy towards or fimbriate at 
the base, rarely loosely hairy all over, hairs soft or somewhat stiff, 
usually from a small tubercle, midrib slender, primary lateral nerves 
2- 5 on each side, very slender. Spatheate panicle narrow, erect, 
from a few inches to over 1J ft. long ; primary internodes 2-6, 
if more than 2 or 3, then the lowest much elongated (up to 10 in. 
and even more), the intermediate rapidly shorter, the uppermost 
very short ; lowest branches often undivided at the base with a long 
slender basal internode and 2-3 approximate few-rayed tiers, the 
following forming tiers of 2-5 rays, all these tiers except the upper- 
most mixed ; compound rays of the lower tiers up to 4 in. long, of 
the upper rapidly shorter, rarely more than 2-noded, filiform, often 
flexuous or nodding, simple rays of lower tiers often over 2 in. long, 
