1. Spike; 2. spikelet; 3 and 4. first and second glumes; 5 and 6. third glume and its palea; 7. ovary and anthers.] The _spikelets_ are 1/16 inch long, oblong-lanceolate, pale, crowded, glabrous, shortly pedicelled on thinly scaberulous filiform short branches. There are three glumes in the spikelet, and all the glumes are membranous and thin. The _first glume_ is a little shorter than the second and about two-third the length of the third glume and 1-nerved. The _second glume_ is a little shorter than the third or equal to but not longer, oblong-lanceolate, subacute or obtuse, 1-nerved and obscurely scaberulous at the back along the nerve. The _third glume_ is broadly oblong, subacute or obtuse, 1-nerved, glabrous, with a palea as long as the glume; the _palea_ is 2-nerved, oblong and truncate at the apex. _Stamens_ are three and anthers are pale greenish yellow. _Stigmas_ are pale. _Lodicules_ are two, small. This grass is an excellent one for binding the soil and may also prove successful as a fodder grass. It usually flourishes in moist situations, in sandy loams and rich heavy soils. _Distribution._--Plains throughout India and Ceylon. [Illustration: Fig. 181.--Sporobolus coromandelianus.] =Sporobolus coromandelianus, _L._= The plant is a densely tufted annual varying in size with the nature of the soil, small and stunted in hard dry soils and large and spreading in rich loose and moist soils. The stems are closely spreading on the ground, rooting sometimes at the lower nodes, branching freely, profusely leafy at the base, covered by a few scale leaves, and 2 to 12 inches long. The _leaf-sheath_ is glabrous, faintly and finely striate, distichously imbricate, compressed, somewhat keeled, outer margin ciliate, and bearded at the mouth. The _ligule_ is a thin short membranous ridge with a fringe of dense fine hairs. The leaf-sheath enclosing the base of the peduncle is rather long, glabrous with a tuft of short hairs at the mouth. The _leaf-blade_ is green without any glaucousness about it, 1/2 to 6 inches long, 3/16 to 1/4 inch broad, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, flat, acuminate, slightly coriaceous, many-nerved with a prominent midrib, scaberulous throughout, with a few long scattered deciduous, tubercle-based hairs towards the base, base subcordate, margin cartilaginous, scabrid and finely serrulate. [Illustration: Fig. 182.--Sporobolus coromandelianus. 1. Portion of a spike showing the verticillate arrangement of the branches and the glands; 2. spikelet; 3. first glume; 4 and 5. second and third glumes; 6. palea of the third glume; 7. anthers and ovary; 8. grain.]