This grass is a very slender annual with weak stems, branched from the base, 10 to 18 inches long.
The leaf-sheath is glabrous, compressed and keeled. The ligule is a truncate membrane. The nodes are glabrous.
The leaf-blade is linear to linear-lanceolate, flaccid, finely acuminate with the margin more or less ciliate towards the base, 3 to 8 inches long and 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide.
The spikes are solitary, erect. 1 to 2-1/2 inches long.
Fig. 197.—Chloris tenella.
1. A portion of the spike; 2. a spikelet; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. the glumes in regular order beginning with the first; 5a, 6a, 7a, 8a and 9b. are the palea of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and the seventh glumes, respectively; 5b. grain.
The spikelets are large about 1/4 inch long cuneate and bifarious. There are usually five to six glumes (and rarely up to eight). The first glume is ovate-lanceolate, acute and hyaline, 1-nerved. The second glume is a little longer and broader than the first glume, 1-nerved and this mid-nerve produced into a very short awn. The third glume is as long as the second or longer, coriaceous, obovate and truncate at the top, 3-nerved and the marginal nerves distant from the margin, keel and the lateral nerves villous to about three-fourths their length, scabrid at the apex close to the truncate margin, paleate; palea is elliptic, with ciliate margins, callus is densely villous. The fourth glume is nearly half or a little more than half of the third glume, narrower, paleate; palea is elliptic. The succeeding glumes fifth to the eighth are similar to the fourth in shape but they get smaller and smaller and the last glume is epaleate. The third glume is usually grain bearing, but rarely the fourth also may contain a grain, the remaining glumes being sterile. Grain is oblong, lenticular, brownish.
This grass is widely spread in the Ceded districts and appears to be a good fodder grass.
Distribution.—Southern India, Rajputana, Scind and Khandeish.