ANDROPOGONE/E 



I63 



Eremoehloa muricata, Hack. 



This is a perennial tufted grass with a woody creeping root- 

 stock. Stems are erect or ascending, slender, strongly compressed, 

 lower parts completely covered by rigid equitant leaves, 6 to 18 

 inches long or more. 



The leaf-sheath is broad, flat, much compressed, glabrous and 

 keeled. The ligule is a short membrane. Nodes are glabrous. 



The leaf-blade is linear, glabrous on both sides, 2 to 6 inches 

 long and 3/16 to l /\ inch broad, with a rounded tip and two unequal 

 lobes. 



The spike is so 1 itary, up to 6 inches (or more) in length, joints 

 of the rachis J£ to 1/2 the length of the spikelets. Spikelets are 

 solitary, sessile, compressed, secund. The sessile spikelets are 

 3/16 to % inch, and consist of four spikelets. The first glume is 

 oblong-lanceolate, dorsally slightly convex, smooth, coriaceous, 7- 

 to 9-nerved, and with pectinate margins consisting of long, spread- 

 ing, up-curved spines and at the top with subquadrate wings on 

 each side reaching beyond the acute tip. The seeond glume is 

 chartaceous, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, usually 5-nerved (and 

 occasionally 3-nerved), the midnerve keeled with a narrow wing from 

 below the middle to the base and with hyaline margins. The third 



glume is oblong- 

 obovate, hyaline, 

 thin, paleate with 

 three yellow anthers 

 and two oblong- 

 cuneate lodieules ; 

 palea is narrow, 

 oblong, obtuse. The 

 fourth glume is thin, 

 nyaline, oblong- 

 lanceolate, obtuse, 

 paleate, and bi- 

 sexual ; palea lanceo- 

 late, narrow, two- 

 toothed at the apex, 

 with deep purple 

 anthers and stigmas 

 of the same colour. 

 The lodieules are 

 obliquely truncate. 

 Ovary has a reddish 

 spot between the 

 style branches and 

 just at the apex in the fresh state in the bud and in the open flower. 



The pedicelled spikelet is reduced to an inflated body, as long 

 as the sessile spikelet. It is pointed towards both ends, green with 

 anastomosing veins on the outside and membranous, white and 

 nerveless on the other side. The part of the pedicelled spikelet 

 corresponding to the spikelet looks as if the margins of the first 

 and second glumes are confluent all round. 



Distribution. — South India and Cevlon. 



Fig. 138. — Eremoehloa muricata. 



A. Sessile spikelet ; B. sessile and a pedicelled spikelet ' 

 1, 2, 3 and 4. the first, second, third and the fourth glume 

 of the sessile spikelet ; 3a and 4a. palea of the third and 

 fourth glumes of the sessile spikelet ; 5. ovary, anthers and 

 lodieules. 



