es_.

This grass is found growing all over the Presidency on the plains and
even on low hills. It grows into a tall plant in rich soils and remains
stunted in poor, dry and rocky soils. Cattle eat this grass.

_Distribution._--Throughout India and Ceylon and in Africa.

=Andropogon caricosus, _L._=

This is a perennial grass more or less tufted in habit and closely
allied to _Andropogon annulatus_, Forsk.

Stems are erect or decumbent below or ascending from a creeping base,
rooting at the nodes, smooth, glabrous and much branched, varying in
height, from 1 to 2 feet; branches are short, slender and sometimes even
capillary, with _nodes_ bearded or not in branches ending in solitary
spikes, and completely glabrous when they end in binate spikes.

_The leaf-sheaths_ are glabrous, rather compressed, striate, shorter
than the internodes. _Ligule_ is membranous, short, very finely
ciliolate or not.

_The leaf-blade_ is linear, finely acuminate, sparsely hairy, sometimes
with tubercle-based hairs, becoming glabrous when old with scaberulous
margins 2 to 8 inches by 1/10 to 1/6 inch, base rounded mostly with a
few long hairs.

[Illustration: Fig. 159.--Andropogon caricosus.

1 and 2. Front and back view of a bit of spike; 3. a sessile and a
pedicelled spikelet; 4, 5 and 6. the first, second and the third glume,
respectively, of the sessile spikelet; 7. awn representing the fourth
glume; 8. stamens, lodicules and the ovary; 9. the first glume of the
pedicelled spikelet.]

_The spikes_ are either binate or solitary varying in length from 1 to 2
inches, joints and pedicels about 1/3 as long as the sessile spikelets,
slightly angular or flat, ciliate along one side with white hairs;
peduncle is slender, pale or purple, pubescent or glabrous just below
the spike.

_The spikelets_ are about 1/8 inch, imbricate, a sessile and a stalked
one from the top of each joint, greenish or purple. The _sessile
spikelet_ contains a bisexual flower and consists of four glumes. The
callus is short, and shortly hairy below. The _first glume_ is somewhat
chartaceous, obovate-oblong, obtuse or truncate, 7- to 11-nerved, margin
slightly folded, keel shortly rigidly ciliate towards the apex, and
thinly ciliate below, dorsal surfaces sparsely hairy below the middle.
The _second glume_ is chartaceous, ovate-lanceolate, acute, equal to or
slightly longer than the first glume but narrower, 3-nerved, margin
infolded, thinly shortly ciliate,