AGROSTIDE^ 



235 



Sporobolus coromandelianus, L. 



The plant is a densely tufted annual varying in size with the 

 nature of the soil, small and stunted in hard dry soils and large 

 and spreading in rich loose and moist soils. 



The stems are closely spreading on the ground, rooting some- 

 times at the lower nodes, branching freely, profusely leafy at the 

 base, covered by a few scale leaves, and 2 to 12 inches long. 



The leaf-sheath is glabrous, faintly and finely striate, distich- 

 ously imbricate, compressed, somewhat keeled, outer margin 

 ciliate, and bearded at the mouth. The ligule is a thin short mem- 

 branous ridge with a fringe of dense fine hairs. The leaf-sheath 

 enclosing the base of the peduncle is rather long, glabrous with a 

 tuft of short hairs at the mouth. 



The leaf-blade is green without any glaucousness about it, % to 

 b inches long, 3/16 to Y\ inch broad, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 

 flat, acuminate, slightly coriaceous, many-nerved with a prominent 

 midrib, scaberulous throughout, with a few long scattered decidu- 

 ous, tubercle-based hairs towards the base, base subcordate, margin 

 cartilaginous, scabrid and finely serrulate. 



The inflorescence is a pyramidal panicle 1% to 4 inches long, 

 erect on a terete glabrous peduncle 1^2 to 6 inches long, the main 



Fig. 182. — Sporobolus coromandelianus. 



1. Portion of a spikes howing the verticillate arrangement of the branches and 



the glands ; 2. spikelet ; 3. first glume ; 4 and 5. second and third glumes ; 



6. palea of the third glume ; 7. anthers and ovary ; 8. grain. 



rachis is slender, erect, striate, glabrous and has glandular streaks 

 just above the insertion of the branches of the lowest verticil. 

 Branches are capillary, stiff and spreading, horizontally verticillate 

 or subverticillate, the lowest whorl consisting of five to sixteen or 

 seventeen branches and the others from three to nine, shining, swol- 

 len at the point of insertion and provided with a glandular scar a 

 little above the point of insertion ; branchlets are very close, appres- 

 sed to the rachis of the branch never drooping or spreading, each 

 bearing two to five, spikelets. 



