Fig. 85.—Panicum fluitans.
1 and 2. Front and back view of a spike; 1a. and 2a. front and back view of a spikelet; 3, 4 and 5. first, second and third glume respectively; 5a. palea of the third glume and stamens in it; 6 and 6a. fourth glume and its palea; 7. stamens and ovary.
The inflorescence is a compound spike varying in length from 4 to 10 inches, erect; the main rachis is triquetrous, dorsally rounded, glabrous and very thinly scaberulous at the edges. Spikes are many (fifteen and more), sessile, secund, generally longer than the internodes, and appressed to the rachis, 1/4 to 1-1/2 inches long; the rachis of the spike is angular, edges scaberulous and with very fine short hairs.
The spikelets are pale, ovoid, acute, biseriate, imbricate, very shortly pedicellate, glabrous, 1/16 to 1/8 inch, pedicels are hairy with a few long hairs towards the base.
There are four glumes. The first glume is white, thin, membranous, truncate and wavy at the apex, nerveless or sometimes with one to three short nerves, less than one-third of the third glume, broader than long and clasping at the base. The second glume is ovate, obtuse or subacute, concave, submembranous, slightly shorter than the fourth glume, 5-nerved but occasionally 6- or 7-nerved. The third glume is a little longer than the second and the fourth, usually 5-nerved, broadly ovate, acute, paleate, always with three stamens which come out only after the fading of the stigmas and enlargement of the ovary in the fourth glume. Lodicules are distinct and conspicuous; palea is broad with incurved broad margins and hyaline. The fourth glume is thinly coriaceous, shining, striolate, broadly ovate, mucronate, compressed, faintly and thinly 5-nerved and palea with infolded margins. Anthers are yellow. Stigmas are white when young. Lodicules are distinct.
It is a common grass of the wet lands met with in many parts of the Presidency and often confused and united with Panicum punctatum, Burm.
Distribution.—Throughout India and Ceylon. It is also found in Arabia, Afghanistan, Africa and Tropical America.