, linear oblong, many-nerved, shortly bifid at the apex,
longer than the other glumes. The second glume is thinner, dorsally
gibbous, keeled, 5- to 9-nerved, beaked and minutely bifid. The third
glume is hyaline, oblong, acute, 3-nerved, paleate and male. The fourth
glume is hyaline, deeply bifid, awned in the sinus, bisexual with a
minute palea. The pedicelled spikelet has also four glumes. The first
and the second glumes are nearly equal, rather chartaceous.
linear-oblong, acute or acuminate, many-nerved. The third glume is
hyaline, oblong-lanceolate, 3-nerved, paleate and male. The fourth glume
is hyaline, bifid, paleate, 1-nerved, female or bisexual. Lodicules are
two. Stamens are three. Grain is oblong.

=Apluda varia, _Hack._=

This is a tall leafy perennial grass with wiry roots. Stems are densely
tufted, branched, geniculately ascending, erect or the branches
scandent, solid, smooth and polished, 1 to 7 feet.

The _leaf-sheath_ is glabrous or slightly hairy, the upper ones being
shorter and dilated into spathes with subulate tips. The _ligule_ is a
short stiff slightly lacerate membrane.

The _leaf-blade_ is linear-lanceolate, finely acuminate, base narrowed
into a petiole, scaberulous on both the surfaces.

The _inflorescence_ consists of simple spikes, each in a spathiform
bract, and forming clusters terminating the stem and the branches. The
_spikes_ have their bases rounded and swollen and each spike consists of
a sessile bisexual spikelet and two flat linear, truncate, parallel
pedicels, one terminated by a spikelet, and the other by a solitary
minute glume. Spathes are 1/8 to 1/3 inch long, sessile or pedicellate,
green, cymbiform, with subulate tips.

[Illustration: Fig. 142.--Apluda varia.

A. A cluster of spikes containing five spikes with their spathes; B and
C. spikes.]

The _sessile_ as well as the _pedicelled spikelets_ have four _glumes_.
The _sessile spikelets_ are 1/8 to 1/5 inch long. The _first glume_ is
spreading or erect, chartaceous, many-nerved, two-toothed at the apex
and with narrow hyaline margins from about the middle to the apex. The
_second glume_ is compressed, dorsally gibbous, keeled, 7-nerved. The
_third glume_ is hyaline, oblong-lanceolate, 3-nerved, paleate with
three stamens; _palea_ is narrow. The _fourth glume_ is shorter than the
third, deeply 2-fid and awned in the cleft, bisexual or female, 3- to
5-nerved below the cleft, the lateral nerves arching and meeting t