nal
faint), and with minute prickles on the keel. The _third glume_ is
broadly oblong, hyaline, nerveless or rarely with two obscure veins
ciliolate at the margins and acute or acuminate. The _fourth glume_ is
shorter than the third, linear-oblong, mucronate or very shortly awned
at the apex, paleate; _palea_ about two-thirds the length of the glume,
lanceolate. _Lodicules_ are two, quadrate and conspicuous though small.
_Styles_ and _stigmas_ short. _Stamens_ are three with yellow anthers.
_Stigmas_ are purple.

The _pedicelled spikelets_ are similar to the sessile ones, but are
slightly smaller and the prickles are less prominent. The _fourth glume_
has no mucro or awn and has three stamens.

This grass is fairly abundant in moist situations, in the margins of
tanks and in tankbeds in the Coromandel districts, but in other inland
districts it is not so common. In some places it seems to be cultivated.
This is the _khus-khus_ grass.

_Distribution._--Throughout the plains and lower hills of India, Burma
and Ceylon, also said to occur in Java and Tropical Africa.

=Andropogon asper, _Heyne._=

(_Chrysopogon asper_, Heyne.)

This is a tufted perennial grass. Stems are stout below with distichous
leaves and very slender above, 2 to 3-1/2 feet long.

The _leaf-sheaths_ are distichous and towards the base of the stem are
1/2 inch broad, compressed, keeled and with scattered tubercle-based
hairs. The _ligule_ is a short membrane fringed with close set hairs.

[Illustration: Fig. 155.--Andropogon asper.

Leafy shoot, a bit of the stem with leaf-sheaths and a bit of the leaf.]

The _leaf-blades_ are broad, distinctly linear, acute or acuminate,
coriaceous, glabrous or softly hairy on both the surfaces, with a
slender midrib which bears short stiff tubercle-based hairs all along,
and margins with similar hairs, but a few leaves towards the base are
longer, and varying in length from 12 to 18 inches and in breadth from
1/2 to 3/4 inch.

The _panicle_ is somewhat narrow, 7 to 8 inches long, branches are very
slender, whorled, usually with only one spike consisting of a sessile
and two pedicelled spikelets.

The _sessile spikelets_ are 1/4 inch long, laterally compressed, with a
long callus villous all round, and bisexual. The _first glume_ is
coriaceous, linear-oblong, strongly compressed above and with a few
stiff short bristles beneath the tip. The _second glume_ is linear,
oblong, coriaceous, with an awn as lo