62 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Eriochloa poiystachya, HE & K. 



This grass is a densely tufted perennial, varying in height from 

 2 to 3 feet, with a short creeping rootstock. Stems are slender, or 

 stout, simple and branching, ascending from a short creeping and 

 rooting base, glabrous, slightly channelled on one side. 



The leaf-sheath is glabrous, green or partly purplish, striate, 

 loose, mouth and margins above sometimes pubescent. The ligule 

 is a short villous ridge. Nodes are perfectly glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is fiat, linear or linear-lanceolate, acuminate, 

 glabrous on both sides, with a slender or prominent midrib, veins 

 more or less uniform, 2 to 10 inches long and Ye to Yd> inch wide, 

 convolute when young. Sometimes the blade is purplish below. 



The inflorescence is a panicle on a long or short glabrous stalk, 

 striate, 2 to 7 inches long, with four to fifteen erect or spreading, 

 lax branches, the main rachis is glabrous, angular and deeply 

 grooved. Spikes or branches are slender, alternate, I to 2Y2 inches 

 becoming shorter upwards, thickened and puberulous at the 

 base, and the secondary rachis is flexuous, grooved, angular, and 

 obscurely pubescent. 



2 3 



Fig. 79. — Eriochloa poiystachya. 



1. A portion of the branch, 2, 3 and 4. the first, second and the third glume, respecti- 

 vely ; 4a. back view of the third glume ; 5. palea of the third glume ; 6. lodicules, 

 stamens and the ovary ; 7. grain. 



The spikelets are green or purplish, ovate, lanceolate, acuminate 

 % to Yo inch long, softly hairy, stalked, solitary above and binate 

 below and then one with a long and the other with a short 

 pedicel rising from a common short branchlet, loosely imbricate, 

 distichous and shortly stipitate and the stipe with a purple thicken- 

 ing ; pedicel is short 1/24 to 1/12 inch with sometimes long deci- 

 duous hairs and the tip somewhat thickened. 



There are three glumes in the spikelet. The first glume is 

 membranous, covered densely with silky hairs, ovate-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, tip very minutely 3-toothed with three to five fine nerves. 

 The second glume is similar to the first glume but with a more 

 pointed tip, faintly 3- to 5-nerved; palea is not present and if present 



