This is a tall monoecious leafy annual (rarely perennial) grass with stout, smooth, polished, freely branching stems rooting at the lower nodes and varying in length from 3 to 5 feet or more. The _leaf-sheath_ is long, usually smooth but occasionally with scattered tubercle-based hairs. The _ligule_ is a narrow membrane. The _nodes_ are glabrous. The _leaf-blade_ is long, flat, narrow or broad, acuminate, cordate at base, with a stout midrib and many slender veins on both sides, usually glabrous on both sides though occasionally with scattered hairs, and with spinulosely serrate margins, varying from 4 to 18 inches in length and 1/3 to 2 inches in breadth. The _inflorescence_ consists of nodding or drooping spiciform racemes, 1 to 1-1/2 inches long, terminating the branches. The racemes consist of many male spikelets with one (rarely two) female spikelets at the base; the rachis is stout above, and the part within the bract enclosing the female spikelet is slender. The _male spikelets_ are imbricating, 2 or 3 at a node of the rachis, one sessile and one or two pedicelled, dorsally compressed, articulate at the base and persistent, very variable in size, 3/8 to 3/4 inch. There are four _glumes_ in the spikelet. The _first glume_ is oblong-lanceolate, chartaceous, 3/5 inch long, acute, many-nerved, concave with inflexed margins bearing narrow green many-veined wings. The _second glume_ is similar to the first, but thinner and without the wings, 5- to 9- or rarely 11-nerved. The _third glume_ is oblong-lanceolate, hyaline, faintly 3- to 5-nerved, paleate and with three stamens. The _fourth glume_ is similar to the third, paleate with or without stamens. [Illustration: Fig. 126.--Coix Lachryma-Jobi.] 1. Inflorescence; 2. the female spikelet; 3. male spikelets; 4, 5, 6 and 8. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively, of a male spikelet; 7 and 9. palea of the third and the fourth glumes, respectively.] The _female spikelet_ is enclosed by a closed bract which finally becomes hardened, and there are four _glumes_ in the spikelet. The _first_ and the _second glumes_ are chartaceous. The _third_ and the _fourth_ are hyaline, the former being empty and the latter with an ovary. _Lodicules_ are not present. The _ovary_ is ovoid with very long capillary styles. The grain is orbicular, compressed, channelled at the back and enclosed within the stony, hardened and polished bract. This grass usually grows in paddy fields. There are two distinct varieties--one a fairly tall one annual and the other a very tall (5 to 10 feet) perennial one. The racemes of the latter are longer and drooping, the male spikelets are in threes and the wings of the first glume are usually broader than in the other form. This species is easily recognized by the polished bract enclosing the female spikelet. _Distribution._--Throughout India. 17. Polytoca, _Br._