The spikelets are green or purplish, 3-awned, unilaterally biseriate on the outside of the rachis, 1/10 inch excluding the awn; the rachilla is bearded at the base, but is shorter than the third glume and bears two barren glumes. There are five glumes. The first and the second glumes are lanceolate, acute, membranous, pale and 1-nerved, but the first glume is shorter than the second. The third glume is broadly elliptic or ovate, concave, awned, 3-nerved, with margins densely bearded above the middle and sparsely bearded dorsally on both the sides of the mid-nerve; the palea is oblanceolate, as long as the glume, folded inside along the margins and outside along the middle, enclosing three stamens and ovary. The fourth glume is cuneiform, 3-nerved, awned, shortly ciliate above the middle, empty. The fifth glume is awned, 3-nerved, glabrous, and globose.
This grass is very widely distributed and it grows in all kinds of soils. Cattle eat it when young, but avoid it when the inflorescence is mature.
Distribution.—Throughout the plains in India, Burma and Ceylon.
Fig. 202.—Chloris Bournei.
1. Full plant; 2. leaf showing ligule.
Chloris Bournei, Rang. & Tad.
This grass appears to be perennial. The stems are somewhat stout, tufted, erect or ascending geniculately from a creeping and rooting base, varying in length from 1 to 3 feet and with internodes to 6 inches becoming longer upwards.