DRY 7. 1 -M-. 



125 



Leersia hexandra, Sw. 



This is a slender perennial marsh-grass with stems rooting in 

 the mud and with flexuous floating branches, sending up erect or 

 ascending, weak and slender leafy branches, 2 to 4 feet high. 



The leaf-sheath Ls smooth, glabrous, with eciliate margins. 



The ligule is a short 

 obliquely truncate or 

 two-lobed membrane. 

 Nodes are hairy with 

 defiexed hairs. 



The leaf -blade is 

 flat, narrow, linear, 

 tapering to a fine 

 point, suberect and 

 rather rigid, glabrous 

 and with a narrow 

 base, varying in 

 length from 3 to 10 

 inches and /•£ to % 

 inch in breadth. 



The inflorescence is 

 an oblong laxly bran- 

 ched, narrow pedun- 

 culate panicle, 2 to 4 

 inches long. 



The s pikelets are 

 all i-flowered and 

 i-glumed, articulate 

 on the pedicels above 

 the rudimentary 



glumes, strongly late- 

 rally compressed. 

 The glume is about 

 Ye, inch long, ovate- 

 oblong, somewhat 

 boat-shaped, acute 

 and shortly mucronate, 

 strongly keeled, ciliate 

 on the keel and mar- 

 gins, 5-nerved, the 

 lateral nerves forming 

 a thickened margin ; 

 palea is as long as the 

 glume, linear-lanceo- 

 late, subacute, rigid with membranous margins. Stamens are six 

 and there are two small lodicules. The first two glumes are 

 reduced to an obscure hyaline rim. 



This marsh-grass is found in marshy places such as ditches and 

 channels in paddy fields, ponds and tanks. 



Distribution. — It is found all over India and Ceylon ; also in 

 Africa, America and Australia. 



Fig. 119. — Leersia hexandra. 

 1. Erect branch ; 2 and 3. bits of leaves with ligules 

 4 and 5. spikelets ; 6. ovary and lodicules. 



