Fig. 135.—Ischæmum ciliare.
Ischæmum ciliare, Retz.
It is a tufted perennial grass, erect or creeping. Stems are erect or ascending, sometimes decumbent at base, and rooting at the nodes, stout or slender, 6 inches to 2 feet long.
The leaf-sheath is compressed, loose, glabrous or hairy. The ligule is a short, ciliate membrane. Nodes are glabrous or hairy.
The leaf-blade is flat, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed towards the acute or rounded base, glabrous or hairy, 2 to 6 inches long and 1/6 to 1/2 inch wide.
The inflorescence consists of two spikes, 1-1/2 to 2 inches long; joints and pedicels of the pedicelled spikelets equal, hairy at the back and at the angles.
The sessile spikelets are 1/8 to 1/5 inch long, oblong, bearded at the base. The first glume is coriaceous, convex, polished, smooth or pitted, hairy below, flat and veined above the middle, with broad or narrow ciliate equal wings and with margins narrowly inflexed above and broadly so below. The second glume is coriaceous, equal to or longer than the first, lanceolate, acuminate, or shortly awned, 3- to 5-nerved, keel narrowly winged towards the apex, dorsally ciliate or not. The third glume is ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, ciliate towards the apex, 1- to 3-nerved, paleate; the palea has a coriaceous lanceolate centre, with broad hyaline ciliate wings and encloses three stamens. The fourth glume is hyaline, deeply lobed into two oblong obtuse glabrous or ciliate lobes, with an awn twice as long as the spikelet in the cleft, and paleate; palea is lanceolate, acuminate, 2-nerved. Styles and stigmas are short.
