The inflorescence consists of a solitary spike with closely imbricating spikelets.
The spikelets are all on one side, and the lower two to six pairs of pedicelled and sessile spikelets are all males. The sessile spikelets are all female and awned, except the few lower which are male and awnless, 1/4 inch long. The callus is long, acute, bearded with reddish-brown hairs. There are four glumes in the spikelet. The first glume is narrow, linear-oblong, truncate or rounded, somewhat brown, many-nerved, hispid, with incurved margins and membranous tip. The second glume is linear, obtuse, coriaceous, dark-brown, hispidulous, 3-nerved with incurved margins. The third glume is oblong, hyaline, thin, nerveless, short and truncate. The fourth glume is reduced to an awn, 3 inches or more in length. The ovary is linear with two long stigmas.
The pedicelled spikelets are somewhat longer than the sessile 1/3 to 1/2 inch, with very short pedicels. The first glume is lanceolate, obliquely twisted, hispid at the back with long bulbous-based hairs, margins more or less unequally winged. The second glume is oblong lanceolate, acuminate, 5-nerved, thinly ciliate with hyaline margins. The third glume is oblong, hyaline, 1-nerved and ciliate. The fourth glume is obovate-oblong or oblong, hyaline, ciliate, nerveless. There are three stamens.
This grass though coarse forms very good hay if cut before it flowers. The only objection against this grass is the presence of the troublesome awns which get twisted together like the strands of a rope. This is the spear grass of the Anglo-Indians. It grows all over the Presidency and is a troublesome weed when in flower.
Distribution.—All over the Presidency and India. Common in all tropical countries.
Andropogon Schoenanthus, L. Var. cæsius.
(Cymbopogon cæsius, Stapf.)
This is a perennial grass with stout or slender, erect stems rising from a woody base, leafy upward, simple or branched.
The leaf-sheath is smooth and glabrous. The ligule is an oblong-ovate membrane. Nodes are glabrous.