dras Presidency.

[Illustration: Fig. 106.--Spinifex squarrosus.

Female plant--1. A branch with female inflorescence; 2, 3, 4 and 5. the
first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively; 6. palea of the
fourth glume; 7. ovary and the lodicules.]

_Distribution._--Throughout the sandy coasts of India and Ceylon.

7. Axonopus, _Beauv._

These are annual or perennial grasses. Inflorescence is a panicle
consisting of digitate or whorled, slender or stout spike-like racemes.
Spikelets are solitary, binate or fasciculate, 2-flowered, jointed on
the pedicel and awned. There are four glumes. The first glume is the
shortest, ovate, acuminate, aristate or cuspidate, hyaline, glabrous and
3-nerved. The second glume is ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or
awned, 5-nerved, lateral nerves being marginal and hairy. The third
glume is oblong or oblong ovate, acute, 5-nerved, paleate, male; palea
is very short and small, bipartite. The fourth glume is as long as the
third and the second, oblong or ovate, coriaceous, narrowed into a
straight terminal awn, paleate and bisexual; palea is oblong, coriaceous
and 2-nerved. Lodicules are cuneate. Stamens are three with linear
anthers. Stigmas are linear, laterally exserted. Grain is oblong, free
within the hardened glume and its palea.

[Illustration: Fig. 107.--Axonopus cimicinus.]

=Axonopus cimicinus, _Beauv._=

It is a perennial grass. Stems are tufted, erect or slightly decumbent
at the base, 1 to 2 feet long.

The _leaf-sheath_ is distinctly striate, covered with scattered long
tubercle-based hairs, very rarely glabrous, keeled. The _ligule_
consists of a row of hairs. The _nodes_ are hairy.

The _leaf-blade_ is flat, ovate-lanceolate, broad and cordate at base,
subacute or obtuse, with a distinct midrib and three main veins on each
side of it, glabrous on both sides, but usually with tubercle-based
hairs on the two sides of the midrib, on the lower side, the margins are
distinctly ciliate with tubercle-based long stiff hairs and very finely
serrate; the blade varies in length from 3/4 to 3 inches and in breadth
from 3/4 to 1/2 inch.

The _inflorescence_ consists of three to ten spikes springing from the
top of a slender glabrous peduncle 2 to 6 inches long. The _spikes_ are
whorled, about 3 inches or so in length, naked towards the base to about
one-fourth of its length, the rachis is fine, filiform, scabrid.

The _spikelets_ are solitary or binate, dorsal