rooting at the nodes and
forming matted tufts with slender, erect or ascending flowering
branches, 3 to 12 inches high.

The _leaf-sheath_ is somewhat tight, glabrous, membranous at the mouth
which is villous. The _ligule_ is a fine ciliate rim.

The _leaf-blade_ is soft, narrowly linear, finely acute, acuminate or
pungent, somewhat glaucous, conspicuously distichous at the base of the
stem and, in non-flowering branches, scabrid along the margins.

The _inflorescence_ consists of two to eight smooth, digitate, green or
purplish spikes, 1 to 3 inches long; _rachis_ is slender, compressed or
angular, scaberulous.

[Illustration: Fig. 191.--Cynodon dactylon.

1. A portion of spike, front view; 2. back view of a bit of spike; 3.
spikelet; 4. first glume; 5. second glume; 6. third glume; 7. palea of
third glume and rachilla; 8. lodicules, ovary and anthers; 9. hairs on
the margin and keel of third glume.]

_Spikelets_ are laterally compressed, sessile, imbricate, arranged
alternately in two series along one side of the rachis; _rachilla_
produced beyond the first two glumes and hidden at the back of the palea
between the two keels, small, slender and blunt when old and with a
membranous imperfect glume when young, less than half the length of the
spikelet. There are three _glumes_. The _first_ and _second glumes_ are
shorter than the third, empty, ovate-lanceolate, acute, membranous with
one thick green nerve in the middle, keeled, upper margin and keel
scaberulous. The _second glume_ is usually a little longer than the
first, but occasionally also slightly shorter than the first. The _third
glume_ is longer than both the first and second glumes, obliquely oblong
to ovate, subacute, membranous, boat-shaped, smooth, keeled, 3-nerved,
one central along the keel and two marginal, keel scabrid below with
stiff pointed hairs above, tip and lower margins scabrid or pilose,
_palea_ linear oblong, a little less than the third glume, obtuse,
2-nerved and with two scabrid keels. _Stamens_ are three with pale
purple anthers. _Lodicules_ are two. Stigmas are purplish. Grain is
oblong, slightly flattened, dorsally rounded, dull reddish-brown.

This is the common Hariali grass. It is also called "Devil's grass."

_Distribution._--It is cosmopolitan.

[Illustration: Fig. 192.--Cynodon intermedius.]

=Cynodon intermedius, _Rang. & Tad._=

This grass is a widely creeping perennial.

The stems are slender, glabrous, creeping