Schizachyrium.\ clvii. gramineas (Stapf). 
185 
sharply inflexed and mostly narrow margins, 2-keeled, the keels 
running out into teeth or mueros; upper thinner to membranous, 
narrowly boat-shaped to dorsally flattened, keeled (at least upwards), 
1-3-nerved, the delicate margins ciliolate. Valves ciliolate, hyaline, 
of lower floret membranous downwards and often purplish, 2-nerved, 
of upper usually 2-fid, sometimes very deeply, or 2-dentate, rarely 
entire, awned, awn from the sinus or continuing the entire valve. 
Valvule 0 or a microscopic hyaline scale. Lodicules 2, minute, 
glabrous. Stamens 3, rarely 2. Stigmas laterally exserted low 
down ; styles terminal. Grain narrowly linear in outline or tapering 
upwards, subterete ; embryo short. Pedicelled spikelet similar to 
the sessile, but usually relatively broader and flatter, or more or less 
reduced and then sometimes quite small. Glumes more or less 
membranous, the lower aristulate or muticous. Valves if present 
hyaline, ciliate, muticous. — Annual or perennial grasses, rarely suf- 
frutescent, never very tall. Culms slender. Leaf -blades folded in bud, 
usually narrow. False panicles varying from very loose and scanty 
to densely fascicled with the spathes mostly very narrow scarious, 
membranous or lower down herbaceous. 
Species about 50, in the tropics of both hemispheres. 
Fertile valve of sessile spikelets 2 -fid to beyond the 
middle, sometimes almost to the base ; their 
lower glume chartaceous to subcoriaceous, usually 
more or less rounded on the back, very obscurely 
nerved. 
Leaf-blades linear, obtuse to very shortly acute ; 
culms usually ascending from a decumbent 
base ; annual. 
Culms very delicate, much branched from below ; 
leaf-blades rarely over lin. wide, and then 
only on the primary axis ; sessile spikelets 
up to 1 ^ lin. long ; anthers \ lin. long ... 1 . 8. brevifolium. 
Culms rather robust, usually with solitary branches 
from the lower and without such from the 
intermediate nodes ; leaf -blades mostly 2-4 
lin. wide ; sessile spikelets 2 lin. long ; anthers 
f-1 lin. long 2. S. jpilatyphyllum. 
Leaf-blades very gradually tapering to a fine point ; 
culms more or less erect. 
Annual (see 8, S. griseum). 
Sessile spikelets under 2 lin. long, glabrous 
except for the minutely bearded callus ; 
racemes very slender 3 . S. delicatum. 
Sessile spikelets 2^-4 lin. long. 
Racemes glabrous except for a silky tuft of 
hairs at the base of the joint, rather 
stout 4. S. urceolatum. 
Eacemes more conspicuously hairy, the in- 
dumentum extending to or beyond the 
lower halves of the joints, pedicels and 
back of the lower glume or at least the 
lower glume of the sessile spikelet hairy 
all over when young (6, 8. glabrescens). 
