bearded at the mouth. The _ligule_ is a thin short membranous ridge with
a fringe of dense fine hairs. The leaf-sheath enclosing the base of the
peduncle is rather long, glabrous with a tuft of short hairs at the
mouth.

The _leaf-blade_ is green without any glaucousness about it, 1/2 to 6
inches long, 3/16 to 1/4 inch broad, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate,
flat, acuminate, slightly coriaceous, many-nerved with a prominent
midrib, scaberulous throughout, with a few long scattered deciduous,
tubercle-based hairs towards the base, base subcordate, margin
cartilaginous, scabrid and finely serrulate.

[Illustration: Fig. 182.--Sporobolus coromandelianus.

1. Portion of a spike showing the verticillate arrangement of the
branches and the glands; 2. spikelet; 3. first glume; 4 and 5. second
and third glumes; 6. palea of the third glume; 7. anthers and ovary; 8.
grain.]

The _inflorescence_ is a pyramidal panicle 1-1/2 to 4 inches long, erect
on a terete glabrous peduncle 1-1/2 to 6 inches long, the main rachis is
slender, erect, striate, glabrous and has glandular streaks just above
the insertion of the branches of the lowest verticil. Branches are
capillary, stiff and spreading, horizontally verticillate or
subverticillate, the lowest whorl consisting of five to sixteen or
seventeen branches and the others from three to nine, shining, swollen
at the point of insertion and provided with a glandular scar a little
above the point of insertion; branchlets are very close, appressed to
the rachis of the branch never drooping or spreading, each bearing two
to five spikelets.

The _spikelets_ are small, 1/20 to 1/16 inch subsessile or pedicelled,
always appressed to the rachis solitary in the upper portions of the
branches, and two to five on the branchlets in the lower portion, pale,
green or rarely copper coloured, oblong or lanceolate, acute or
acuminate, caducous or glumes one and two persistent.

There are three _glumes_. The _first glume_ is very small, hyaline,
ovate, obtuse, occasionally truncate or acute, about one-fifth of the
third glume or less. The _second glume_ is membranous, ovate or
oblong-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, thinly scaberulous and 1-nerved.
The _third glume_ is as long as or a little shorter than the second
glume, 1-nerved and paleate. The _palea_ is as long as the glume,
oblong, 2-nerved, splitting in two portions between the nerves as soon
as the grain is formed. _Stamens_ are three with reddi