8 inch; palea is sub-persistent and keels of palea
scaberulous. _Stamens_ are three with small violet anthers. Grain is
ellipsoid laterally pointed at the base.

This grass occurs in wet places or close to the margins of ponds, marshy
situations all over the Presidency.

_Distribution._--All over India and also in South Europe and most warm
countries.

=Eragrostis cynosuroides, _Beauv._=

This is a tall perennial grass freely branching from the base and with
stout stolons covered with shining sheaths. The root-stock is stout and
creeping. The stems are tufted, smooth, erect, with fascicles of leaves
at the base 1 to 3 feet high.

The _leaf-sheath_ is glabrous, slightly compressed, distinctly keeled,
as broad or slightly broader than the blade at the mouth. _Ligule_ is a
line of short hairs.

The _leaf-blade_ is linear, rigid, glabrous, acuminate with filiform
tips, and finely serrulate margins, varying in length from 2 to 10
inches and the basal leaves sometimes reaching 20 inches.

The _panicle_ is strict, erect, narrowly pyramidal, often interrupted,
varying in length from 6 to 18 inches and breadth from 1/2 to 2 inches.
Branches are many, short, crowded, densely clothed from the base with
sessile, imbricating, much compressed deflexed spikelets.

[Illustration: Fig. 226.--Eragrostis cynosuroides.

1. A branch with spikelets; 2. flowering glumes with their palea; 3 and
4. empty glumes; 5 and 6. flowering glume and its palea.]

The _spikelets_ are secund, biseriate, shining, pale brown, 1/2 inch
long, up to 30-flowered. The _empty glumes_ are unequal, the second
being the larger. The _flowering glumes_ are coriaceous, ovate, acute as
long as the second or slightly longer, paleate, palea is sub-coriaceous
and shorter than the glume. _Stamens_ are three. Grain is obliquely
ovoid, laterally compressed.

This grass grows usually in moist sandy loams, sand dunes, and is very
common on the Coromandel coast and in the Deccan Districts.

_Distribution._--Throughout in the plains of India.

=Eragrostis bifaria, _Wight Ex Steud._=

This is a densely tufted perennial grass. Stems are simple, erect,
glabrous, somewhat compressed, 1 to 3 feet high, and the base clothed
with the old remains of the leaf-sheaths.

The _leaf-sheath_ is scaberulous, keeled. The _ligule_ is a line of fine
hairs.

The _leaf-blade_ is wiry, narrow, linear, flexuous, rigid, acute,
smooth, flat or complicate, keeled, 2 to 3 inches lon