56 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Digitaria sanguinalis, Scop. 



Var. ex tens um. 



This grass is an annual with stems ascending from a prostrate 

 or geniculate, rooting branched base, greenish or purplish, glabrous 

 and varying in length from I to 2% feet. 



The leaf-sheath is thin, herbaceous, rather loose, keeled and 

 glabrous. The ligule is a distinct membrane, truncate rarely 

 irregularly toothed. The nodes are glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is linear-lanceolate, acuminate, fiat when mature 

 and convolute when young, glabrous, I to 12 inches long and % to 

 Yz inch broad, the margin is very closely and finely serrate, the 

 midrib is prominent with three or four main veins on each side. 



The inflorescence consists of a few or many spikes, corymbosely 

 arranged on a short angular slightly rough axis, erector spreading, 

 \ x /2 to 4 inches long, the lowest ones in whorls of two to four; the 

 rachis is nearly triquetrous, laterally winged, base thickened and 

 with a few long white hairs ; the peduncle is cylindric, smooth, 6 

 to 12 inches long. 



Fig. 75. — Digitaria sanguinalis, Var. extensum. 



1. A portion of spike ; 2, 3 and 3a. the back and front views of a spikelet ; 4, 5 and 6 

 the first, second and the third glume, respectively ; 7. palea of the third glume ; S. 

 anthers, lodicules and the ovary. 



The spikelcts are oblong-lanceolate, acute, about i/lO inch long, 

 binate, one pedicelled and the other subsessile, the pedicel is 

 angular about Y2 to 2 /i the length of the spikelet. 



There are three glumes in the spikelet corresponding to the 

 second, third and fourth glumes of a Panicum, the first glume being 

 obsolete. The first glume is membranous, ovate-lanceolate, acute, 

 about Y the length of the spikelet or very much less, 3-nerved, 

 densely ciliate along the margins and silkily hairy between the 

 nerves. The second glume is greenish, oblong lanceolate, acute, 



