1/8 to 1/6 inch broad.

The _spikes_ are elongate, digitate, 2 to 7, 2 to 5 inches long, all in
a terminal whorl and sometimes with one or two lower down, and with the
axils glandular and hairy; the _rachis_ is slender and dorsally
flattened.

[Illustration: Fig. 206.--Eleusine indica.

1. A portion of the spike; 2. a spikelet; 3. flowering glumes and their
palea with the rachis; 4 and 5. the first two glumes; 6 and 7. flowering
glume and its palea; 8. the ovary, stamens and the lodicules; 9 and 10.
grain.]

The _spikelets_ are variable in size, 1/12 to 1/6 inch, 3 to 5, rarely
6-flowered, quite glabrous, biseriate, pointing upward at an acute angle
with the rachis. All the glumes are more or less membranous. The _first
glume_ is small, oblong-ovate or oblong, 1-nerved with a scabrid keel.
The _second glume_ is twice the size of the first, ovate-oblong,
3-nerved, rarely 3- to 7-nerved, glabrous, shortly mucronate at the
acute apex. The _third glume_ and the succeeding flowering glumes are
larger than the second, ovate-oblong, subacute, 3-nerved and paleate;
_palea_ is shorter than the glume, glabrous. _Stamens_ are three.
_Lodicules_ are small and cuneate. The grain is oblong, obtusely
trigonous, broadly and shallowly grooved dorsally with concentric minute
tubercled ridges covered with a loose pericarp.

This grass is fairly common in somewhat wet places in the plains and low
hills.

_Distribution._--Throughout India and Ceylon.

=Eleusine brevifolia, _Br._=

This is an annual grass. Stems are creeping and spreading from the root,
and ascending from a decumbent base, generally slender and small, but
sometimes large and proliferously branched, leafy, 3 to 7 inches long.

The _leaf-sheath_ is compressed and glabrous. The _ligule_ is a very
short membrane, ciliate at the margin or obsolete.

The _leaf-blade_ is linear, acute, with a subcordate or rounded base 1/2
to 2 inches long and 1/8 to 1/6 inch broad.

The _spikes_ are usually many, sessile and crowded in globose heads,
varying in diameter from 1/3 to 2/3 inch.

[Illustration: Fig. 207.--Eleusine brevifolia.

1. A spikelet; 2 and 3. the first and the second glumes; 4 and 5. the
third glume and its palea 6. lodicules, ovary and stamens.]

_Spikelets_ are sessile, biseriate, ovate-oblong, 1/8 to 1/6 inch long,
4- to 10-flowered. The _first two glumes_ are membranous, ovate-oblong,
glabrous, acuminate and shortly awned, the _first glume_ is shorter th