Distribution.—So far collected in Coimbatore, Salem, Tinnevelly, Chingleput and Gōdāvari districts.
36. Chloris, Sw.
These are annual or perennial grasses. Spikes are solitary or many in terminal umbels or short racemes, erect or spreading. Spikelets are unilateral, sessile, crowded, biseriate on a slender rachis with four to six glumes and 1 to 3-flowered; the rachilla is produced and disarticulating above the empty glumes. The first two glumes are unequal, narrow, keeled, membranous, 1-nerved, persistent, acute, mucronate and the second glume awned shortly. Floral glumes narrow or broad, acute, obtuse or minutely 2-toothed and awned, paleate; sterile glumes are small, without palea. There are two lodicules and anthers are rather small. Grain is narrow and free.
KEY TO THE SPECIES.
- Spikelets 1-flowered.
- Perennial.
- Rachilla produced beyond the flowering glumes and bearing
awns with rudimentary glumes.
- Spikes 4 to 10, long, whorled; spikelets narrow fusiform; glume III oblong lanceolate. 1. C. incompleta.
- Rachilla produced beyond the flowering glume and bearing
1 to 3 reduced glumes.
- Spikes free at the base, digitate.
- Spikes connate at the base, erect and not spreading.
- Rachilla produced beyond the flowering glumes and bearing
awns with rudimentary glumes.
- Annual.
- Spike solitary, spikelets broadly cuneiform, 3-awned, glume III broadly cuneate, upper margins naked and keel villous. 2. C. tenella.
- Perennial.
- Spikelets 1- to 3-flowered.
- Perennial.
- Spikes 5-9, spikelets broadly cuneate 3 to 5-awned, glume III bearded all through the margin and dorsally. 5. C. Bournei.
- Perennial.
Chloris incompleta, Roth.
This is a perennial grass. Stems are procumbent when growing in open places, but erect if growing amidst bushes, often branched, ending in long naked peduncles, varying in length from 1-1/2 to 4 feet. In some cases prostrate stems produce roots at the nodes.
The leaf-sheaths are long, glabrous, the mouth being generally hairy. The ligule consists of long hairs. Nodes are glabrous.