Panicum.] Graminece. 155 



34. P. proliferum, Lam. Encycl. iv. 747 (1797). 



P. palicdosum, Roxb. Fl. Ind. i. 307. P. decomfiositum, Br., van 

 paludosum, Trim. Cat. 105. C. P. 3049, 4020. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 50. Turner, Austral. Grasses i. 36 (decomposititni). 



Perennial ; stem 2-3 ft. or more, stout, ascending from a 

 creeping or floating spongy rootstock which is sometimes as 

 thick as the little finger, leafy up to the panicle, simple or 

 branched, internodes short or long, nodes glabrous; 1. 6-12 

 by £-§ in., linear or ensiform, acute or acuminate, fiat, rather 

 coriaceous, glabrous, base rounded or subcordate, margins 

 minutely scabrid, lower sheaths tumid, usually loose, glabrous, 

 margins eciliate, ligule a ridge of fine hairs ; panicle 4-10 in., 

 often as broad when spreading, sessile at the mouth of the 1.- 

 sheath, or very shortly peduncled, at first contracted, with few 

 or many erect branches, which are fascicled or whorled below, 

 and at length divaricate, rhachis and branches rather stout, 

 angular, scaberulous, branches strict, naked below, bearing 

 short erect fig. branchlets about the middle; spikelets \- \ in., 

 erect, shortly pedicelled, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate; glume 

 I not one-fourth of III, orbicular or reniform, white, hyaline, 

 veins obscure or o, II and III subequal, broadly ovate„ 

 acuminate, II 7-veined, III 9-veined, paleate or not, empty 

 or triandrous, IV sessile, shorter than III narrowly oblongs 

 acute or acuminate, dorsally convex, smooth, white, coriaceous,, 

 margins rather broadly incurved. 



Marshes, borders of rivers and lakes, in the hotter parts of the Island, 

 often floating. 



Tropics of both hemispheres. 



It is often difficult to distinguish in a dried state P . prolifemm from 

 P. repens. Over and above the longer, more acuminate spikelets of 

 proliferum, it differs in habit, being habitually a water grass, with much 

 stouter stems, prostrate for sometimes several feet, the leaves are more 

 flaccid, usually longer, always flat, the ligule a well-developed ridge of 

 very fine hairs, and the rigid branches of the panicle eventually spread 

 at right angles. I do not find in Herb. Peradeniya specimens marked 

 C. P. 3049 cited in Thwaites's Enumeratio and referred to P. repens ; 

 those so marked in Herb. Kew. certainly belong to P. proliferum. 

 Leaves greedily eaten by cattle. 



35. P. montanum, Roxb. Fl. Ind. i. 313 (1832). 

 Thw. Enum. 360. C. P. 892. 



Fl. B. Ind. vii. 53. 



Perennial; stem 3-4 ft. or more, erect from a woody root- 

 stock, branched, stiff, hard, solid, smooth, internodes 2-5 in., 

 nodes glabrous; 1. 5-7 by \-\\ in., spreading or defiexed from 

 the sheath, narrowed from above a broad cordate base to an 

 acuminate tip, fiat, smooth, many-veined, quite glabrous or 

 ciliate at the base only, midrib slender, margins scaberulc us, 



