These are erect leafy much branched annual grasses. Leaves are amplexicaul and cordate at the base. The inflorescence consists of small, terete, axillary and terminal spikes with peduncles often confluent in a leafy spiciform panicle; the rachis is fragile with short broad joints, deeply excavate opposite the sessile spikelets and the tips with two pits. Spikelets are in dissimilar pairs, one globose, sessile and bisexual and the other ovate, pedicelled, neuter with the pedicels adnate to, or closely appressed to the joint of the rachis. The sessile spikelet has four glumes. The first glume is globose, hard, coarsely pitted, with an oblong ventral opening opposite the cavity in the joint of the rachis. The second glume is chartaceous, minute, oblong, 1-nerved immersed in the cavity of the first glume and closing the opening. The third and the fourth glumes are hyaline and minute. The lodicules are broadly cuneate. Anthers are minute. The styles are free and stigmas are short exserted from the opening in the first glume. Grain is sub-globose.
Manisuris granularis, L.f.
This is a freely branching annual with stems leafy to the top and varying in length from 1 to 2-1/2 feet.
The leaf-sheath is inflated, covered with scattered tubercle-based hairs. The ligule is a short membrane with ciliate margin. Nodes are with long hairs.
The leaf-blade is linear, cordate and amplexicaul at base, acute, flat, flaccid, with scattered tubercle-based hairs on both the surfaces, 4 to 10 inches by 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
The spikes are solitary, axillary and terminal and 1/4 to 1 inch, the peduncles of the spikes are often confluent in a leafy spathiform panicle; the rachis is fragile with short joints deeply excavate on one side.
Fig. 147.—Manisuris granularis.
1 and 2. The front and back view of a bit of a spike; 3, 4, 5 and 6. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively, of the sessile spikelet; 7. ovary anthers and lodicules; 8, 9, 10 and 12. the first, second, third and the fourth glume, respectively, of the pedicelled spikelet; 11 and 13. palea of the third and fourth glumes.