1 44 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Polytoca barbata, Stapf. 



This is an erect, tall, stout, freely branching, leafy, monoecious 

 perennial grass. The stems are terete 3 to 6 feet high. 



The leaf-sheaths are long, glabrous, or with scattered tubercle- 

 based bristly hairs. The ligule is a narrow membrane. The 

 nodes have a ring of soft long hairs. 



The leaf-blades are long, flat, linear, acuminate, with a stout 

 midrib and thickened serrate margins, scabrid above and some- 

 times with a few tubercle-based hairs, 10 inches to 2 feet long and 

 Y\ to Y\ inch broad. 



The inflorescence consists of paniculate spike-like racemes ter- 

 minating the branches and at first enclosed in spathiform bracts, 

 the lower and outer spathiform bracts are one inch or more in length 

 with a long awn at the tip, and the inner proper sheaths are oblong 

 awned and about V 2 inch long. The raceme consists of one or 

 more female spikelets at the base and a number of male spikelets 



Fig. 127. — Polytoca barbata. 

 1. Inflorescence ; 2, 3, 4 and 5. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respec- 

 tively, of the male spikelet ; 4a and 5a. palea of the third and the fourth glume. 

 respectively : 6. the first glume of the sessile spikelet ; 7. female spikelet ; X, 9 and 10. 

 the second, third and the fourth glume, respectively; II. palea of the fourth glume; 

 12. ovary. 



above, appearing as if sessile on the top of the female spikelet, 

 but really articulate with the internode below it which is enclosed 

 by the first glume of the female spikelet. 



The male spikelets are solitary, or binate and then one sessile 

 and one pedicelled, 2-flowered, reaching V% inch in length and 

 consist of four glumes each. The, first glume is concave, ovate, acute, 



