80 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Panicum colonnm, L. 



This is a slender annual growing to a height of 2 feet. The 

 stems are creeping below, erect above, and with roots in the lower 

 internodes of the decumbent part of the stem, smooth, dull green 

 or partly purplish. 



The leaf-sheath is glabrous and sharply keeled. The nodes are 

 glabrous or obscurely pubescent. There is no ligule. 



The leaf-blade is narrow, lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous but 

 sometimes tubercle- based hairs occur just on the margin at the base 

 of the leaf-blade close to the white band, varying in length from I 

 to 6 inches and in breadth 3/16 to 5/ 16 inch ; the margin is minutely 

 and distantly serrate, midrib is quite distinct and there are three 

 main veins on each side and three or four smaller between main 

 ones. The blades of the lower leaves are narrow at the base and 

 broader at about the middle but those of the upper are equally 

 broad at the base, as well as at the middle. 



FlG. 90. — Panicum colonum. 



I and 2. The front and back view of the spikes ; la and 2a. the back and the 

 front view of the spikelet ; 3, 4 and 5. the first, second and the third glume, respectively : 

 6. palea of the third glume ; 7 and 8. the fourth glume and its palea ; 9. ovary anther 

 and lodicules. 



The inflorescence is a contracted panicle, 3 to 5 inches long. 

 Spikes are from 8 to 20, suberect, usually distant, Y\ to I inch long 

 and getting shorter upwards ; the rachis of the spike is stout, 

 angular, scaberulous on the angles with a few long hairs towards 

 the base. 



The spikelets are small green or partly purplish 1/12 to 1/10 inch 

 long, globosely ovoid, acute, pubescent with minute hairs on the 

 outer surface of the glumes and bristly hairs on the nerves, all on 

 one side, sessile or very shortly pedicelled, two or three from a 

 node, one or two barren, 3- to 5-seriate. 



There are four glumes in the spikelet. The first glume is about 

 half of the third glume, broadly ovate or suborbicular, acute, 

 generally 3-nerved, rarely 5-nerved, pubescent between and hispidly 

 hairy on the nerves. The second glume is as long as the third, 

 broadly ovate, cuspidate, 5-nerved sometimes with two partial 



