ANDROPOGONE/E 



159 



Ischaemnm ciliare, Retz. 



It is a tufted perennial grass, erect or creeping". Stems are erect 

 or ascending, sometimes decumbent at base, and rooting at the 

 nodes, stout or slender, 6 inches to 2 feet long. 



The lea/sheath is compressed, loose, glabrous or hairy. The 

 ligule is a short, ciliate membrane. Nodes are glabrous or hairy. 



The leaf-blade is flat, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed 

 towards the acute or rounded base, glabrous or hairy, 2 to 6 inches 

 long and % to Vz inch wide. 



The inflorescence consists of two spikes, 1/4 to 2 inches long ; 

 joints and pedicels of the pedicelled spikelets equal, hairy at the 

 back and at the angles. 



The sessile spikelets are % to [ /s inch long, oblong, bearded at the 

 base. The first glume is coriaceous, convex, polished, smooth or 



pitted, hairy below, 

 flat and veined 

 above the middle, 

 with broad or 

 narrow ciliate equal 

 wings and with 

 margins narrowly 

 inflexed above and 

 broadly so below. 

 The second glume is 

 coriaceous, equal to 

 or longer than the 

 first, lanceolate, 

 acuminate, or 



shortly awned, 



3- to 5-nerved. 

 keel narrowly 



winged towards the 

 apex, dorsally cili- 

 ate or not. The 

 third glume is ovate- 

 lanceolate, acumi- 

 nate, ciliate towards 

 the apex, I- to 3-nerved, paleate ; the palea has a coriaceous 

 lanceolate centre, with broad hyaline ciliate wings and encloses 

 three stamens. The fourth glume is hyaline, deeply lobed into two 

 oblong obtuse glabrous or ciliate lobes, with an awn twice as long 

 as the spikelet in the cleft, and paleate; palea is lanceolate, 

 acuminate, 2-nerved. Styles and stigmas are short. 



The pedicelled spikelets resemble the sessile ones in the structure 

 of their glumes and palea. 



This grass is very variable in its habit and in the structure of its 

 spikelets. It grows mostly in wet situations, such as the bunds of 

 paddy fields and tanks. Cattle eat the grass eagerly. 



Distribution. — All over India and Ceylon. 



fig. 



Spikelets ; 



136.— Ischremum ciliare. 



3, 4 and 6. the first, second, third and 



the fourth glume, respectively, of the sessile spikelet ; 5 and 

 7. palea of the third and the fourth glumes, respectively ; 8. 

 lodicules, stamens and the ovary ; 9 and 10. the first and the 

 second glumes of the pedicelled spikelet. 



