and plains of India and in
Australia and Africa.

26. Mnesithea, _Kunth._

These are erect slender perennial grasses with narrow leaves. The spikes
are solitary and slender, with a fragile, articulated rachis; the joints
are terete, ribbed, all but a few upper with two equal and similar
sessile spikelets, sunk in sub-opposite oblong cavities, separated by a
hyaline septum, and with sometimes a minute glume representing a third
spikelet (the pedicelled) on the upper margin of the joint. The sessile
spikelets are one-flowered, nearly as long as the internode. There are
four glumes in the spikelet. The first glume closing the mouth of the
cavity in the joint is obliquely oblong, obtuse, smooth with narrowly
incurved margins. The second and the third glumes are as long as the
first, obtuse and hyaline. The third glume is empty, paleate or not. The
fourth glume is rather small, oblong, obtuse, bisexual and palea shorter
than the glume. The lodicules are not present. The stamens are three.
Ovary is very small with stigmas not exserted. The grain is narrowly
oblong compressed. The pedicelled spikelets are confined to the upper
1-flowered joints of the spike and their pedicels are confluent with the
walls of the joints and their margins are marked by two ribs. The first
glume is very minute and the other glumes are absent.

=Mnesithea laevis, _Kunth._=

This is an erect slender perennial grass with smooth simple or branched
stems varying in height from 2 to 4 feet.

The _leaf-sheath_ is terete, tight, glabrous. The _ligule_ is a short
toothed membrane. _Nodes_ are glabrous.

The _leaf-blade_ is flat, linear from a narrow base, glabrous or base
hairy; apices of upper leaves acuminate, and those of the lower obtuse,
with finely serrate margins and a midrib prominent below, 6 to 12 inches
long and 1/10 to 1/6 inch wide.

_Racemes_ are short, exserted from the uppermost sheath, erect, 4 to 8
inches long; joints are 1/5 inch long, contracted in the middle, with
two equal and similar spikelets, sunk in the opposite oblong cavities
separated by a thin hyaline septum and sometimes with a minute glume of
the third spikelet on the upper margin of the joint.

[Illustration: Fig. 146.--Mnesithea laevis.

1 and 2. Portions of a spike; 3, 4, 5 and 6. the first, second, third
and the fourth glume, respectively; 7. palea of the fourth glume; 8.
ovary; 9 and 10. a part of the spike at the terminal portion.]

The _sessile spik