I'HLORIDH i: 



273 



Eleusine indica, Gaertn. 



This is a tufted annual grass with short, erect, somewhat 

 compressed, glabrous stems, I to 2 feet high. 



The leaf-sheaths are compressed, distichous, ciliate. The ligule 

 is a ridge of hairs. 



The leaf-blacks are narrow-linear, as long as the stem, glabrous 

 or with a few scattered hairs near the mouth, acuminate, base not 

 contracted, 12 to 20 inches long and % to V^ inch broad. 



The spikes are elongate, digitate, 2 to 7, 2 to 5 inches long, all in 

 a terminal whorl and sometimes with one or two lower down, and 

 with the axils glandular and hairy; the rachis is slender and 

 dorsally flattened. 



The spikelets are variable in size, 1/12 to 1/6 inch, 3 to 5 rarely 

 6-fiowered, quite glabrous, biseriate, pointing upward at an acute 





FlG. 206. — Ele.isine indica. 



I. A portion of the spike; 2. a spikelet : 3. flowering glumes and their paiea with 

 the rachis ; 4 and 5. the first two glumes ; 6 and 7. flowering glume and its palea ; 8 

 the ovary, stamens and the lodicules : 9 and 10. grain. 



angle with the rachis. All the glumes are more or less membranous. 

 The first glume is small, oblong-ovate or oblong, i-nerved with a 

 scabrid keel. The second glume is twice the size of the first, ovate- 

 oblong, 3-nerved, rarely 3- to 7-nerved, glabrous, shortly mucronate 

 at the acute apex. The third glume and the succeeding flowering 

 glumes are larger than the second, ovate-oblong, subacute, 

 3-nerved and paleate ; palea is shorter than the glume, glabrous. 

 Stamens are three. Lodicules are small and cuneate. The grain 

 is oblong, obtusely trigonous, broadly and shallowly grooved 

 dorsally with concentric minute tubercled ridges covered with a 

 loose pericarp. 



This grass is fairly common in somewhat wet places in the 

 plains and low hills. 



Distribution. — Throughout India and Ceylon. 



35 



