454 
GKRAMINE2E. 
[ Bhragmites . 
glumes. Flowering glume like the empty ones in texture, lanceolate, 
with a long point; pale small, included. Hypogynous scales large. 
Stamens 3. Styles short ; stigmas plumose, protruded from the side of 
the spikelet. Grain free, cylindrical. — Tall swamp-grasses, with many 
broad leaves and very ample panicles. Distrib. Cosmopolitan. Per- 
haps one species only. 
1. P. communis, Trin. var. P. mauritianus , Kunth , Gram. i. 80, 277, 
t. 50. Stem 10-12 feet long, erect, terete, hollow, in. thick, with 
numerous nodes. Leaves linear, subcoriaceous, acuminate, 1-2 feet long, 
in. broad, scabrous and cartilaginous at the edge. Panicle a foot or 
more long, with very numerous ascending decompound slender branches 
in half- whorls ; spikelets \ inch long, 5-6-flowered. Outer empty 
glume lanceolate, | in. long ; inner ovate, half as long. Flowering 
glume i in. long, lanceolate, with a long point. Kunth , Enum. i. 251. 
Arundo bengalensis, Bojer , Sort. Mam. 368, not Betz. 
Mauritius and Rodriguez, frequent in lakes and swamps. Cosmopolitan in the 
temperate and warm temperate zones. Arundo bengalensis, Retz., with which Bojer 
confounded the plant, is A. Bonax, Linn., of similar general habit, but with empty- 
glumes as long as the spikelet, and all the florets fertile and enveloped in tufts of 
hairs. 
* Of the genus Boa , Linn , which includes many of the staple grasses 
of the greensward of the temperate zone in both the northern and 
southern hemispheres, and which differs from Eragrostis mainly by its 
webbed and usually 5-ribbed flowering glumes and deciduous pale, 
two of the common northern species occur casually in Mauritius, viz. — 
* P. cmnua , Linn. ; Kunth, Enum. i. 849 ; annual, stems a span 
high with few nodes, panicle lax with 1-2-nate flu ally horizontal or 
even deflexed branches and 3-7-flowered spikelets. 
* P. compressa, Linn. ; Kunth Enum. i. 355; perennial, with a 
creeping rootstock, stems 1-2 feet high compressed with many nodes, 
panicle contracted with short ascending 2-3-nate branches and flowers 
4-9 to a spikelet. 
23. ERAGROSTIS, Beauv. 
(. Megastachya , Beauv. ; Bojer.) 
Spikelets many-flowered, arranged in ample panicles. Empty glumes 
chartaceous, unequal, or subequal. Flowering glume oblong, similar 
to the empty glumes in texture, usually 3-nerved, not webbed. Pale 
persistent, 2-ribbed. Hypogynous scales 2. Stamens 3. Styles short ; 
stigmas plumose, protruded from the side of the spikelet. Grain 
oblong, brown, free. — Annual or perennial densely-tufted grasses with 
narrow leaves and small laterally -compressed spikelets. Distrib. 
Warmer zones of both hemispheres. Species 100. 
