at the base, few to 40-flowered and occasionally
up to 70-flowers, 1/8 to 1 inch.

The _empty glumes_ are subequal or the first is a little shorter, ovate,
acute, membranous, keeled, and sometimes the keels with glands; the
_first glume_ is usually one-nerved (rarely obscurely one- to
three-nerved) and the _second glume_ is three-nerved.

The _flowering glumes_ are broadly ovate, oblique, obtuse, sometimes
with a minute mucro, sub-chartaceous, punctulate, strongly three-nerved,
paleate, about 1/12 inch long; palea is shorter than the glume, curved,
obovate-oblong, keels ciliolate and persistent. _Stamens_ are three with
very small pale yellow anthers. Stigmas are two and white. _Lodicules_
are very small. Grain is globose reddish brown, minutely and obscurely
lineolate.

This grass is a very common weed occurring in cultivated dry fields all
over this Presidency.

_Distribution._--Throughout India and Ceylon in the plains and low
hills. Occurs also in tropical and sub-tropical parts of Asia and
Africa.

[Illustration: Fig. 223.--Eragrostis Willdenoviana.]

=Eragrostis Willdenoviana, _Nees._=

This is a tufted annual. Stems are leafy at the base, erect or
geniculately ascending, slender but rigid, varying in length from 4 to
18 inches.

The _leaf-sheath_ is smooth, cylindric, glabrous, outer margin ciliate;
tufts of long hairs are present at the sides of the margin of the
sheath, just outside close to the hyaline patch. The _ligule_ is a
fringe of short white hairs. The _nodes_ are greenish or with a tinge of
purple, glabrous and with a glandular ring below.

The _leaf-blade_ is lanceolate-linear, pointed, flat, rigid, the margin
is very minutely serrulate, glandular and occasionally also with fine
long hairs; the upper surface is somewhat rough, the lower smooth and
both with fine long scattered hairs or glabrous.

[Illustration: Fig. 224.--Eragrostis Willdenoviana.

1. Spikelets; 1_a._ 1st glume; 2 and 2_a._ the second glume; 3 and 3a.
the flowering glume; 4. palea of the flowering glume; 5. lodicules,
stamens and the ovary; 6. grain.]

The _inflorescence_ is a stiff open panicle, ovate to oblong, 2 to 4-1/2
inches long on a slender, terete, glabrous peduncle; the main _rachis_
is angular, slender with glandular scars, a little below the attachment
of the branches; the branches are capillary, grooved stiff and spreading
with small glandular scars just above the node. The _spikelets_ are
elliptic-oblon