Distribution.—Plains throughout India and Ceylon.
Fig. 181.—Sporobolus coromandelianus.
Sporobolus coromandelianus, L.
The plant is a densely tufted annual varying in size with the nature of the soil, small and stunted in hard dry soils and large and spreading in rich loose and moist soils.
The stems are closely spreading on the ground, rooting sometimes at the lower nodes, branching freely, profusely leafy at the base, covered by a few scale leaves, and 2 to 12 inches long.
The leaf-sheath is glabrous, faintly and finely striate, distichously imbricate, compressed, somewhat keeled, outer margin ciliate, and bearded at the mouth. The ligule is a thin short membranous ridge with a fringe of dense fine hairs. The leaf-sheath enclosing the base of the peduncle is rather long, glabrous with a tuft of short hairs at the mouth.