102 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Cham * raphis spinescens, Poir. 



A glabrous aquatic or marsh grass, with much branched floating 

 stems. Stems are leafy, elongate, ascending, varying in length 

 from I to 3 feet. 



The leaf-sheaths are long, smooth, loose, with naked margins. 

 The ligule is a ridge of hairs. The nodes are glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is flat, narrowly linear-lanceolate, smooth or 

 scabrid, acuminate, base narrowed, I to 3% inches long and 

 1/16 to V% inch wide. 



The in florc 'sec •nee is a pyramidal panicle, contracted or diffuse, 

 with a leaf very near its base ; peduncle is short ; branches of the 

 panicle, filiform, angular, flexuous, bearing one or more spikelets 

 and produced as a bristle beyond the last spikelet. 



The spikelets are l /£to l A rarely V3 inch long including the awn, 



subsessile and somewhat on one side on the branches, obscurely 



articulate but persistent on the pedicels, pale or green, lanceolate. 



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



suborbicular, rounded 

 at the tip and nerve- 

 less, 1 30 inch or less. 

 The second glume is 

 membranous, lanceo- 

 late, smooth or setosely 

 scabrid on the sides, 

 9- to Il-nerved, with a 

 long scabrid awn 

 which is sometimes as 

 long as the body of the 

 glume. The third 



glume is shorter than 

 the second, finely 

 acuminate, or awned, 

 7-nerved, membranous, 

 paleate and with three 

 stamens and two 



lodieules ; the palea is 

 shorter than the 

 glume, linear-oblong, 

 Fig. 104. Chamseraphis spinescens. subacute. The fourth 



1. Terminal portion of a spike showing the bristle ■ , r \ iunc j s ovate-lanceO- 

 2, 3, 4 and 6. the first, second, third and the fourth » nerveless acute 



glume, respectively ; 5. palea of third glume with its late, nerveless, acute, 

 anthers and lodieules; 7. palea of the fourth glume; paleate With three 



8. ovary ; 9. lodieules. stamens, ovary and two 



lodieules ; palea is 

 hyaline, narrow, quarter the length of the third glume. Grain is 

 obovate oblong. 



Distribution.— This plant is found at the edges in ponds, tanks 

 and marshes all over the Presidency. 



