260 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Chloris virgata, Sw. 



This grass seems to be a perennial. The stems are somewhat 

 flattened, erect, tufted, leafy at the base and occasionally with 

 creeping stems rooting at the lower nodes varying in length from 

 10 to 21 inches. 



The leaf-sheaths are glabrous, compressed, upper sheaths some- 

 what inflated ; mouth of the sheath is bearded with long hairs in 

 the leaves of young branches and quite glabrous when old and in 

 flower-bearing branches, margins are thin and membranous. The 

 ligule is a thin narrow membranous ridge. 



The leaf-blades are rather narrow, linear, flat, acute, glabrous 

 when old, and with scattered long hairs in the leaves of young 

 branches, varying in length from 2 to 9 and sometimes even 15 

 inches and in breadth about ~% inch or less. 



The inflorescence consists of from four to nine spikes digitately 

 arranged on a long peduncle and the leaf-sheath enclosing the 



Fig. 19S. Ch!oris virgata. 



I. Spikelet ; 2 and 3. the first and second glumes ; 4 and 5. the third glume and its 

 palea ; 6. lodicules, stamens and the ovary ; 7. the fourth glume ; 8. grain. 



inflorescence is somewhat large and inflated. Spikes are I to \y 2 

 inches long with fine, angular rachis, scaberulous in the edges. 



Spikelets are about 1/10 inch, 2-awned, shortly stalked and 

 consist of only four glumes. The first glume is small lanceolate, 

 glabrous, with the keel scaberulous, I-nerved. The second glume is 

 about one and a half times the first, oblong-lanceolate, 2-fid at the 

 apex, glabrous, but the keel scaberulous and nerve produced 

 between the lobes into a short scaberulous awn. The third glume 

 is oblong-ovate, lanceolate, 2-fid at the apex, and awned in the 

 sinus, awn being about V\ inch long bearded at the base, the 

 margins are slightly ciliate up to about the middle and then closely 

 ciliate with long hairs almost to the tip, but not to the tip ; on the 

 two sides of the dorsal nerve there are two shallow grooves one on 



