This book is intended to serve as a guide to the study of grasses of the plains of South India. For the past few years I have been receiving grasses for identification, almost every week, from the officers of the Agricultural and Forest Departments and others interested in grasses. The requirements of these men and the absence of a suitable book induced me to write this book. I have included in this book about one hundred grasses of wide distribution in the plains of South India. Many of them oc

Grasses occupy wide tracts of land and they are evenly distributed in all parts of the world. They occur in every soil, in all kinds of situations and under all climatic conditions. In certain places grasses form a leading feature of the flora. As grasses do not like shade, they are not usually abundant within the forests either as regards the number of individuals, or of species. But in open places they do very well and sometimes whole tracts become grass-lands. Then a very great portion of the

Grasses vary very much in their habit. Some grasses grow erect forming tufts and others form cushions with the branches creeping along the ground. (See figs. 5 and 6.) We usually find all intermediate stages from the erect to the prostrate habit. Underground stems such as stolons and rhizomes occur in some grasses. Grasses of one particular species generally retain the same habit but this does not always hold good. For example Tragus racemosus grows with all its branches quite prostrate in a poo

The flowers of grasses are reduced to their essential organs, the stamens and the pistil. The flowers are aggregated together on distinct shoots constituting the inflorescence of grasses. Sooner or later all the branches of a grass-plant terminate in inflorescences which usually stand far above the foliage leaves. As in other flowering plants, in grasses also different forms of inflorescence are met with. But in grasses the unit of the inflorescence is the spikelet and not the flower. The forms

The shoots and roots of grasses conform in their internal structure to the monocotyledonous type. In all grasses numerous threads are found running longitudinally within the stem and some of these pass into the leaves, at the nodes, and run as nerves in the blades of the leaves. These threads are the vascular bundles. The rest of the tissue of the stem and leaves consists of thin-walled parenchymatous cells of different sorts. The general structure of these bundles is more or less the same in al

The family Gramineæ is usually divided into two series taking into consideration the presence or absence of a joint in the pedicel or rachis, the number of flowers in the spikelet and the position of the fertile flower. All the species in which there is a joint just below the spikelet, in the pedicel, in the rachis, or at the base of a cluster of spikelets come under one series Panicaceæ . The spikelets of the grasses coming under this series, when mature, fall away singly by themselves, or with

This is a fairly large and important tribe flourishing mostly in the warm regions and the tropics. It is very well represented in South India and fifteen genera are met with. The inflorescence varies very much within this tribe and consists of spikes, racemes and panicles. The spikelets are usually four-glumed and contain one terminal perfect flower and a staminate or neutral flower below. But in the genus Isachne both the flowers are perfect. In some grasses the spikelets contain only staminate

Oryzeæ is a very small tribe with a few genera, which usually flourish in marshes. The spikelets are in panicles, 1-flowered and the flower is usually perfect. In Oryza there are three glumes, the first two being very minute, and there is only a single glume in Leersia and Hygrorhiza. There are usually six stamens. The palea becomes firm in texture like the glume instead of remaining hyaline, and so it is often mistaken for a glume. The spikelets are jointed on their pedicels and fall away from

Andropogoneæ is a very large tribe with about thirty genera. It is very well represented in South India and some genera are of very wide distribution. The spikelets are usually arranged in pairs at each joint, one sessile and the other stalked. The spikelets may all be similar as in Imperata or they may be different as in Ischæmum and Andropogon. There may be only one flower in the spikelet as in Eremochloa and Saccharum or two as in Ischæmum and Apocopis. In the genera Polytoca and Coix the spi

The tribe Agrostideæ is a very small one. It is represented in South India only by a few genera. The spikelets are usually 1-flowered and the rachilla is jointed at the base just above the empty glumes and it is not produced beyond the flowering glume. There are only three glumes in the spikelet. Chlorideæ is also a small tribe with about ten genera, most of them being very common in Southern India. The spikelets are unilaterally biseriate on the rachis which is not jointed at the base. There ar

Festucaceæ is of minor importance as it is not well represented in the South India. Only about half a dozen genera occur and most of them on the hills. The spikelets are usually 2- or more-flowered, pedicelled and in panicles, open or contracted. The rachilla is produced beyond the flowering glumes and articulate at the base just above the empty glumes. Hordeæ is also a minor tribe and is represented by only one genus in South India. The spikelets are one-or more-flowered, sessile, 1- or 2-seria

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