This is an excellent fodder grass. It grows well in all kinds of soils, rich or poor, and is very common in dry fields brought under cultivation.
Distribution.—Throughout India.
Digitaria sanguinalis, Scop.
Var. Griffithii.
This is an annual with stems ascending from a prostrate or geniculate base, glabrous and varying in length from 1 to 3 feet.
The leaf-sheath is glabrous, thinly herbaceous and loose. The ligule is a distinct membrane and the nodes are glabrous.
The leaf-blade is linear or linear-lanceolate, flat, acuminate, varying in length from 2 inches to 12 inches and in breadth 1/6 to 1/3 inch.
The inflorescence is of several slender spikes, usually drooping, 2 to 4 inches; the rachis is filiform and trigonous.
The spikelets are linear-lanceolate, solitary or in distant pairs, glabrous or ciliate, pedicelled and when binate the upper pedicel often longer than the spikelets, usually spreading and not appressed to the rachis.