238 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Sporobolus coramutatiis, Kunth. 



This is an annual and usually grows in loose tufts. Stems are 

 slender, always erect or ascending, leafy and branching, 2 to 15 

 inches long. 



The leaf-sheath is shorter than the internode, slightly com- 

 pressed, finely striate, glabrous and occasionally with a few 

 scattered tubercle-based hairs, margin ciliate ; the uppermost 

 sheath is cylindric somewhat long and embraces the greater 

 portion of the peduncle and has a bunch of short hairs at the top. 



The leaf-blade is narrow linear-lanceolate, acuminate, scaberu- 

 lous throughout, with long tubercle-based hairs scattered all over, 

 but more of them near the base ; margins spinulosely distantly 

 serrulate or scabrid, base rounded or subcordate, % to 4^2 inches 

 long and 1/16 to 3/16 inch wide. 



The inflorescence is diffuse, pyramidal, I to 3 inches by % to 2 

 inches, on a slender glabrous peduncle I to 6 inches long, main 



Fig. 184. — Sporobolus commutatus. 



1. A potion of a branch ; 2. spikelet ; 3, 4 and 5. first, second and the third 

 ^lume ; 6. palea of the third glume ; 7. ovary and anthers ; 8 and 9. grain. 



rachis is slender and angled, with a glandular streak or without 

 it. Branches are effuse, fine, capillary (more so than in S. coro- 

 mandelianus), obliquely ascending, never stiff and horizontal, 

 verticillate or irregularly subverticillate, the lowest whorl of five to 

 twelve and the others three to seven branches ; the rachis of the 

 branches is obscurely scaberulous, slightly swollen at the point of 

 insertion ; branchlets are never appressed to the branch, always 

 drooping and spreading on all sides, and bearing two to four 

 spikelets. 



The spikelets are about 1/16 inch long, ovate-lanceolate, acute 

 or acuminate dark or pale green, sometimes purplish, solitary 

 or two to four on long slender pedicels, drooping, never appres- 

 sed, and with glandular streaks. There are three glumes. The 

 first glume is minute, hyaline, ovate, obtuse or acute, nerveless. 

 The second glume is five or six times as long as the first, ovate 

 lanceolate, I-nerved, acuminate. The third glume is equal to or a 



