PANICKY 



99 



Panicum repens, L. 



This is a perennial glaucous grass with stoloniferous and 

 rhizomiferous stems bearing ordinary erect leafy branches, and 

 the branches come out piercing through the leaf-sheath (extra- 

 vaginal). 



Stems are numerous, stiff and erect, % to 3 feet in length, 

 glabrous, covered below by brownish or whitish scale-leaves, and 

 above with densely distichous leaves. 



The leaf-sheath is firm, distinctly striate, glabrous, margins 

 ciliate on both sides up to the point of overlapping and then the 

 outer margin alone ciliate. The ligule is a short thin membrane 

 with very short cilia on the free margin. The nodes are glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is glaucous, narrow, lanceolate, thinly coriaceous, 

 acuminate with a hardened tip, ! to 7 or 9 inches long, X A to V\ inch 

 broad, flat or involute when slightly faded, with a few distantly 

 scattered hairs above, especially towards the lower portion of the 

 blade when young, and becoming glabrous later, glabrous on the 

 lower surface, margin is finely serrate and with a few cilia towards 

 the base, some hairs being tubercle-based ; base of the blade is 

 rounded or cordate, midrib is prominent and keeled. 



Kn;. 103. — Panicum ivpi'ns. 



I. Spike ; 2 and 3. frunt and back view of a spikelet ; 4, 5 and 6. first, second and 

 third glumes; 7. palea of the third glume: S and 9. fourth glume and its palea ; 10. 

 lodicult-s, stamens and ovary; II. leaf showing ligule. 



The inflorescence is a panicle, contracted and not much exserted 

 from the top-most leaf-sheath, 3 to 8 inches long, branches are 

 usually many, erect, the lower being 2 to 5 inches long, slender, 

 angular and scaberulous. 



The spikelets are glabrous, erect, pale or pale green, sometimes 

 purplish also on one side, ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acute, 

 /^ inch, pedicels are long with cupular tips. 



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

 broadly ovate, rounded and shortly acute or subacute, indistinctly 3, 

 to 5-nerved or nerveless, less than one-third of the height of the 

 third glume. The second glume is membranous, ovate-lanceolate 



