This plant is a tufted annual. It branches freely from the base; branches are tufted, decumbent at first but soon becoming erect, slender, glabrous, compressed and leafy, varying in length from 1 to 3 feet.
Leaves are somewhat distichous. The leaf-sheath is compressed, glabrous, sometimes with a tinge of purple, the lower ones swollen at the base and the mouth is hairy. The ligule is a fringe of hairs. Nodes are glabrous.
The leaf-blade is flat, thinly coriaceous, linear-lanceolate and acuminate, or ligulate with a rounded tip, 3 to 5 inches in length, 3/16 to 5/16 inch wide, glabrous or very thinly scaberulous, base rounded or slightly cordate with long white ciliate hairs on the small basal lobes.
Fig. 83.—Panicum flavidum.
1 and 2. Front and back view of a portion of spike; 1a and 2a. the front and back view of a spikelet; 3 and 4. the first and the second glume, respectively; 5 and 5a. the third glume and its palea; 6 and 6a. the fourth glume and its palea; 7. anthers and ovary; 8. grain.
The inflorescence is a raceme of spikes, 5 to 10 inches long, erect or inclined on a short or long, glabrous, strongly channelled peduncle; the main rachis is grooved, angled and scaberulous. Spikes are few or many, 1/4 to 1 inch long, erect, pressing on the rachis of the inflorescence along the groove, distant and sessile; the lower spikes are very much shorter than the internodes, but the upper equal to or longer than the internodes; the rachis of the spike is angular, flattened below, erect or slightly recurved.
The spikelets are white, in two rows on a flattened rachis, obliquely ovoid or gibbously globose, glabrous, sessile, 1/8 inch in length.
There are four glumes. The first glume is suborbicular, about half the length of the third glume, usually 3-nerved. The second glume is broadly ovate, obtuse, concave, larger than the first glume and nearly equal to or shorter than the fourth glume, 7-nerved, rarely 7- to 9-nerved, nerves are anastomosing, tip rounded. The third glume is broadly ovate or oblong, equal to or longer than the fourth glume, obtuse, 3- to 5-nerved, paleate, mostly with and rarely without stamens. The anthers are yellow and they do not open until the stigmas and anthers of the fourth glume are thrown out. Lodicules are two and conspicuous. Palea is hyaline with infolded margins. The fourth glume is coriaceous, broadly ovate, tip acutely pointed and almost cuspidate or acute, mucronate, white or brownish, reticulately minutely pitted. Anthers are three and yellow. Stigmas are purplish. Lodicules are small but conspicuous.
This grass is very common throughout the plains and grows in the bunds of paddy fields and in wet situations, and goes up to moderate elevations on the hills. Cattle eat this grass greedily and seem to like it. It is considered to be an excellent fodder.