first glume is oblong or ovate, flat, smooth,
coriaceous, pectinately margined with upcurved spines. The second glume
is oblong-lanceolate, acute and 3-nerved. The third glume is hyaline,
obtuse, paleate and male. The fourth glume is smaller, hyaline, oblong,
obtuse, 1-nerved, paleate, bisexual or female. Lodicules are truncate
and slightly oblique. Stamens are three with long anthers. Styles are
two with feathery stigmas. The grain is oval, plano-convex.

=Eremochloa muricata, _Hack._=

This is a perennial tufted grass with a woody creeping root-stock. Stems
are erect or ascending, slender, strongly compressed, lower parts
completely covered by rigid equitant leaves, 6 to 18 inches long or
more.

The _leaf-sheath_ is broad, flat, much compressed, glabrous and keeled.
The _ligule_ is a short membrane. _Nodes_ are glabrous.

The _leaf-blade_ is linear, glabrous on both sides, 2 to 6 inches long
and 3/16 to 1/4 inch broad, with a rounded tip and two unequal lobes.

The _spike_ is solitary, up to 6 inches (or more) in length, joints of
the rachis 1/3 to 1/2 the length of the spikelets. _Spikelets_ are
solitary, sessile, compressed, secund. The _sessile spikelets_ are 3/16
to 1/6 inch, and consist of four spikelets. The _first glume_ is
oblong-lanceolate, dorsally slightly convex, smooth, coriaceous, 7- to
9-nerved, and with pectinate margins consisting of long, spreading,
upcurved spines and at the top with subquadrate wings on each side
reaching beyond the acute tip. The _second glume_ is chartaceous,
oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, usually 5-nerved (and occasionally
3-nerved), the mid-nerve keeled with a narrow wing from below the middle
to the base and with hyaline margins. The _third glume_ is
oblong-obovate, hyaline, thin, paleate with three yellow _anthers_ and
two oblong-cuneate _lodicules_; _palea_ is narrow, oblong, obtuse. The
_fourth glume_ is thin, hyaline, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, paleate, and
bisexual; _palea_ lanceolate, narrow, two-toothed at the apex, with deep
purple _anthers_ and _stigmas_ of the same colour. The _lodicules_ are
obliquely truncate. _Ovary_ has a reddish spot between the style
branches and just at the apex in the fresh state in the bud and in the
open flower.

[Illustration: Fig. 138.--Eremochloa muricata.

A. Sessile spikelet; B. sessile and a pedicelled spikelet; 1, 2, 3 and
4. the first, second, third and the fourth glume of the sessile
spikelet; 3a and 4a. palea of the thir