264 



SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES 



Chloris barbata, Sw. 



This is a very common perennial grass. 



Stems are stout, tufted, geniculately ascending and erect when 

 in flower, and some creeping and rooting at the nodes ; leafy at the 

 base and branching upwards, I to 3 feet ; the lower internodes are 

 2 to 3 inches long and the upper still longer, glabrous. 



The leafs heat lis are glabrous, compressed laterally, open at the 

 base and closed above, with a few scattered long hairs at the 

 mouth, the margins thinly membranous. The ligule is a very 

 narrow membrane. The nodes are glabrous mostly bearing tufts 

 of leaves with compressed equitant sheaths. 



The leaf-blade is narrow linear, fiat or folded, acuminate, with 

 long hairs on the margin towards the base, varying in length from 

 2 to l8 inches. 



Fig. 2or.— Chloris barbata. 



i to 5. the first, second, third, fourth and the fifth glume of a spikelet ; 3a and 3b. the 

 third glume and its palea ; 3c. ovary, stamens and lodicules ; 4a and 5a. the fourth and 

 fifth glumes : 6. grain. 



The inflorescence consists of five to fourteen or fifteen sessile, 

 digitately arranged spikes, varying in length from \V 2 to 3 inches, 

 on a slender peduncle ; the rachis is slender minutely hairy swollen 

 at the base. 



The spikelets are green or purplish, 3-awned, unilaterally biseriate 

 on the outside of the rachis, I/JO inch excluding the awn ; the 

 rachilla is bearded at the base, but is shorter than the third glume 

 and bears two barren glumes. There are five glumes. The first 

 and the second glumes are lanceolate, acute, membranous, pale and 

 I-nerved, but the first glume is shorter than the second. The third 

 glume is broadly elliptic or ovate, concave, awned, 3-nerved, with 

 margins densely bearded above the middle and sparsely bearded 

 dorsally on both the sides of the mid-nerve ; the palea is oblanceo- 

 late, as long as the glume, folded inside along the margins and 

 outside along the middle, enclosing three stamens and ovary. The 



