CHLORTDE/E 



25S 



Cynodon Barberi, Rang. & Tad. 



This grass is perennial with slender, creeping stems, 12 to 24 

 inches long, rooting at the nodes and invariably with two or three 

 rarely more branches from each node; flowering branches are 

 slender, erect or ascending, I to 6 inches long. 



The leaf -sheath is short, smooth, compressed with scattered long 

 hairs at the mouth. The ligule is a narrow membrane with the edge 

 cut into narrow lobes. 



The leaf-blade is flat, linear, acute or sub-acute, scaberulous, Yz to 

 lV 2 inches long, % to 3/16 inch broad. 



The inflorescence consists of three to five digitate spikes, % to 

 lYz inches long, erect or spreading, pale green or purplish. The 

 spikelets are compressed laterally, sessile or obscurely pedicelled, 

 imbricate, alternately biseriate on the ventral side of the rachis, 

 l-fiowered; the rachilla is produced into a bristle behind the 

 palea, with or without a minute glume. There are three glumes. 

 The first glume is lanceolate, acute, shorter than the second, with a 



Fig. 195. — Cynodon Barberi. 



1. Fron land back view of a portion of spike ; 2. a single spikelet ; 3. a spikelet 

 with the flower out ; 4. the third glume, its palea and the produced rachilla with a minute 

 glume ; 5. clavellate hairs ; 6. ovary ; 7. lodicules ; 8. grain. 



keel which is scabrid. The second glume is lanceolate, acuminate, 

 equal to or a little longer than the third glume with a scabrid keel. 

 The third glume is obliquely oblong to ovate, sub-acute, truncate or 

 2-toothed, boat-shaped, sub-chartaceous, 3-nerved, paleate and 

 distinctly keeled; the keel and the margins of the gluaie are 

 densely covered with distinctly clavellate hairs ; palea is firmly 

 membranous, equal to or slightly smaller than the glume, linear- 

 oblong, 2-keeled, densely hairy with clavellate hairs along the 

 keels, and 2-nerved. There are two lodicules and three stamens. 

 The ovary is ovoid with two style branches. Grain is free within 

 the glume, oblong, smooth, transparent, and the embryo is about 

 one-third the length of the grain. 



