Cynodon Barberi, Rang. & Tad.
This grass is perennial with slender, creeping stems, 12 to 24 inches long, rooting at the nodes and invariably with two or three rarely more branches from each node; flowering branches are slender, erect or ascending, 1 to 6 inches long.
The leaf-sheath is short, smooth, compressed with scattered long hairs at the mouth. The ligule is a narrow membrane with the edge cut into narrow lobes.
The leaf-blade is flat, linear, acute or subacute, scaberulous, 1/3 to 3-1/2 inches long, 1/8 to 3/16 inch broad.
Fig. 195.—Cynodon Barberi.
1. Front and back view of a portion of spike; 2. a single spikelet; 3. a spikelet with the flower out; 4. the third glume, its palea and the produced rachilla with a minute glume; 5. clavellate hairs; 6. ovary; 7. lodicules; 8. grain.
The inflorescence consists of three to five digitate spikes, 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches long, erect or spreading, pale green or purplish. The spikelets are compressed laterally, sessile or obscurely pedicelled, imbricate, alternately biseriate on the ventral side of the rachis, 1-flowered; the rachilla is produced into a bristle behind the palea, with or without a minute glume. There are three glumes. The first glume is lanceolate, acute, shorter than the second, with a keel which is scabrid. The second glume is lanceolate, acuminate, equal to or a little longer than the third glume with a scabrid keel. The third glume is obliquely oblong to ovate, subacute, truncate or 2-toothed, boat-shaped, sub-chartaceous, 3-nerved, paleate and distinctly keeled; the keel and the margins of the glume are densely covered with distinctly clavellate hairs; palea is firmly membranous, equal to or slightly smaller than the glume, linear-oblong, 2-keeled, densely hairy with clavellate hairs along the keels, and 2-nerved. There are two lodicules and three stamens. The ovary is ovoid with two style branches. Grain is free within the glume, oblong, smooth, transparent, and the embryo is about one-third the length of the grain.
This species is closely allied to Cynodon dactylon, Pers., but differs from it in the following respects:—The absence of stoloniferous underground branches, leaves short and not finely pointed; spikes not exceeding five; the second glume is always equal to or longer than the third glume; presence of clavellate hairs on the keels and margins of the third glume and on the keels of the palea.