Fig. 136.—Ischæmum ciliare.
1. Spikelets; 2, 3, 4 and 6. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively, of the sessile spikelet; 5 and 7. palea of the third and the fourth glumes, respectively; 8. lodicules, stamens and the ovary; 9 and 10. the first and the second glumes of the pedicelled spikelet.
The pedicelled spikelets resemble the sessile ones in the structure of their glumes and palea.
This grass is very variable in its habit and in the structure of its spikelets. It grows mostly in wet situations, such as the bunds of paddy fields and tanks. Cattle eat the grass eagerly.
Distribution.—All over India and Ceylon.
Ischæmum laxum, L.
This is a perennial grass with numerous stiff, thick and wiry roots.
Stems are erect, slender, rising in tufts from a short root-stock, glabrous, leafy towards the base, varying in length from 2 to 3 feet.
The leaf-sheaths are shorter than the internodes usually glabrous, but occasionally with scattered hairs. At the mouth tufts of hairs are present or not. The ligule is a ridge of silky hairs. The nodes are glabrous.
The leaf-blades are erect, flat, slightly glaucous, linear, narrowed to long capillary tips, 5 to 12 inches long and 1/10 to 1/6 inch broad, with prominent nerves and scabrid margins.
The inflorescence is a solitary spike, 2 to 5 inches long, erect and fragile; the joints and pedicels are compressed, somewhat 2-angled, ciliate with long hairs, and about half as long as the spikelets.