Dactyloctenium .] 
GRAMINEJ3. 
453 
Flowering glume acute, pale green, pilose on the mucronate keel, 
in. long. D. mucronatum, Willd. ; Trin. Ic . t. 69. 
Mauritius and Seychelles, common at all elevations. Spread round the world in 
the two warmer zones. D. distachyum , Bojer, Hort. Maur. 370, is D. prostratum , 
Willd. ; Kunth, Enum. t. 261, a dwarf variety, with the spikes reduced to two or 
three. Chiendmt patte de poules. 
21. CHLORIS, Sw. 
Spikelets few-flowered, the lowest flower alone perfect, arranged in 
secund digitate spikes. Empty glumes lanceolate, acute, persistent. 
Flowering glume firmer in texture, awned from the tip, boat-shaped ; 
pale smaller. Hypogynous scales 2, entire. Stamens 3. Styles short ; stig- 
mas plumose, spreading. Grain free, trigonous, with a membranous 
pericarp. — Tropical grasses, with few linear leaves. Distbib. Warmer 
zones of botb hemispheres. Species 50. 
Flowering glume densely bearded, and furnished with a 
long awn 1 . G. barb at a. 
Flowers glume glabrous, with a short awn 2. C. monostachya. 
1. C. barb at a, Sw. ; Kunth , Knum. i. 264. Annual, with stems and 
leaves in tufts from a rooting rhizome. Stems slender, 1-2 feet long, 
with few nodes in the ascending portion. Leaves narrow linear, acumi- 
nate, 3-6 in. long, glabrous or pilose. Spikes 10-15, 2-3 inches long ; 
spikelets 3-4-flowered, the lowest flower awned, hermaphrodite, the 
two next awned, imperfect, the uppermost a mere rudiment. Flowering 
glume y 1 ^ in. long, densely ciliated, with a scabrous awn three times its 
length. Outer empty glume as long as the spikelet. Jacq. Eclog. 
Gram. t. 8. Andropogon barbatus, Linn. Mant. 302. 
Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Seychelles, common. Coin de Mire, Horne! 
Tropics of both hemispheres. 
2. C. monostachya, Poir. Encycl. Suppl. ii. 238. Annual, gla- 
brous, with a very slender rhizome. Leaves in dense basal tufts, linear- 
subulate, 1-1J in. long. Flowering-stem erect, very slender, 6-9 in. long, 
•with a single small leaf below the middle. Spikes 1-2, f-ly in. long ; 
spikelets Aa i n - long, 2-3-flowered. Outer empty glume acute, 
shorter than the spikelet. Flowering glume lanceolate, glabrous, with 
a short awn. C. distachya, Bojer , Hort. Maur . 371 ; Kunth , Gram. i. 
291, t. 57 ; Enum. i. 266. 
Mauritius, on the crest of Montagne Longue. Also East Indies and Bourbon. 
22. PHRAGMITES, Trin. 
Spikelets 4-6-flowered, arranged in very ample lax panicles. Empty 
glumes much shorter than the spikelet, membranous, the inner one 
lanceolate, the other very small, ovate. Flowers distinctly spaced on 
the rachis, all except the lowest hermaphrodite and enveloped in a 
dense tuft of hairs, the lowest imperfect and sessile inside the empty 
