and 1/16 to 1/8 inch
wide.

The _inflorescence_ is a pyramidal panicle, contracted or diffuse, with
a leaf very near its base; peduncle is short; branches of the panicle,
filiform, angular, flexuous, bearing one or more spikelets and produced
as a bristle beyond the last spikelet.

The _spikelets_ are 1/6 to 1/4 rarely 1/3 inch long including the awn,
subsessile and somewhat on one side on the branches, obscurely
articulate but persistent on the pedicels, pale or green, lanceolate.

There are four glumes in the spikelet. The _first glume_ is hyaline,
suborbicular, rounded at the tip and nerveless, 1/30 inch or less. The
_second glume_ is membranous, lanceolate, smooth or setosely scabrid on
the sides, 9- to 11-nerved, with a long scabrid awn which is sometimes
as long as the body of the glume. The _third glume_ is shorter than the
second, finely acuminate, or awned, 7-nerved, membranous, paleate and
with three _stamens_ and two _lodicules_; the _palea_ is shorter than
the glume, linear-oblong, subacute. The _fourth glume_ is
ovate-lanceolate, nerveless, acute, paleate with three _stamens_,
_ovary_ and two _lodicules_; _palea_ is hyaline, narrow, quarter the
length of the third glume. Grain is obovate oblong.

[Illustration: Fig. 104.--Chamaeraphis spinescens.

1. Terminal portion of a spike showing the bristle; 2, 3, 4 and 6. the
first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively; 5. palea of
third glume with its anthers and lodicules; 7. palea of the fourth
glume; 8. ovary; 9. lodicules.]

_Distribution._--This plant is found at the edges in ponds, tanks and
marshes all over the Presidency.

6. Spinifex, _L._

This is a stout, rigid, much branched, gregarious and dioecious grass,
flourishing in sand on the sea coast. Leaves are long, narrow rigid,
involute, spreading and recurved and thickly coriaceous. Male spikelets
are 1- to 2-flowered, subsessile, distichous, jointed on rigid peduncled
spikes, which are collected in umbels and surrounded by spathaceous
leafy bracts. The spikelets have four glumes. The first two glumes are
empty. The third and the fourth paleate and triandrous and sometimes the
former is empty. Female spikelets are collected in large globose heads
of stellately spreading very long rigid rod-like processes surrounded by
shorter subulate bracts. Each spikelet is solitary, and articulate at
the very base of a rachis, lanceolate, 1-flowered. There are four
glumes. The first three glum