_H. B. & K._

These are annuals or perennials. Leaves are flat. The inflorescence is a
raceme or a panicle. Spikelets are one-flowered, borne unilaterally on
the branches, and the base is thickened and jointed on the top of a
short pedicel. The spikelet has three glumes. The first and the second
glumes are subequal, membranous. The third glume is apiculate, hardened
in fruit. The lodicules are small and truncate. There are three stamens
with linear anthers. Styles are two free, with plumose stigmas. The
grain is oblong, free within the hardened glume and its palea.

[Illustration: Fig. 78.--Eriochloa polystachya.]

=Eriochloa polystachya, _H. B. & K._=

This grass is a densely tufted perennial, varying in height from 2 to 3
feet, with a short creeping root-stock. Stems are slender, or stout,
simple and branching, ascending from a short creeping and rooting base,
glabrous, slightly channelled on one side.

The _leaf-sheath_ is glabrous, green or partly purplish, striate, loose,
mouth and margins above sometimes pubescent. The _ligule_ is a short
villous ridge. _Nodes_ are perfectly glabrous.

The _leaf-blade_ is flat, linear or linear-lanceolate, acuminate,
glabrous on both sides, with a slender or prominent midrib, veins more
or less uniform, 2 to 10 inches long and 1/6 to 1/3 inch wide, convolute
when young. Sometimes the blade is purplish below.

The _inflorescence_ is a panicle on a long or short glabrous stalk,
striate, 2 to 7 inches long, with four to fifteen erect or spreading,
lax branches, the main rachis is glabrous, angular and deeply grooved.
Spikes or branches are slender, alternate, 1 to 2-1/2 inches, becoming
shorter upwards, thickened and puberulous at the base, and the secondary
rachis is flexuous, grooved, angular, and obscurely pubescent.

[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Eriochloa polystachya.

1. A portion of the branch; 2, 3 and 4. the first, second and the third
glume, respectively; 4a. back view of the third glume; 5. palea of the
third glume; 6. lodicules, stamens and the ovary; 7. grain.]

The _spikelets_ are green or purplish, ovate, lanceolate, acuminate 1/8
to 1/6 inch long, softly hairy, stalked, solitary above and binate below
and then one with a long and the other with a short pedicel rising from
a common short branchlet, loosely imbricate, distichous and shortly
stipitate and the stipe with a purple thickening; pedicel is short, 1/24
to 1/12 inch with sometimes long deciduous hairs an