Fig. 87.—Panicum Crus-galli.
1 and 2. Front and back views of spike; 3. spikelet; 4 and 5. first and second glumes; 6 and 7. third glume and its palea; 8. fourth glume, front and back view; 9. ovary, anthers and lodicules.
The spikelets are turgid, densely packed on one side of the rachis in three to five rows, sessile or subsessile, sub-globose or ovoid, with unequal tubercle-based bristly hairs on the nerves of the glumes and with short minute hairs on the outer surface of the glumes, 1/12 to 1/8 inch; awn 1/4 inch to 5/16 inch.
There are four glumes. The first glume is 1/3 to 1/2 of the third glume, suborbicular, abruptly acuminate or rarely mucronate and 5-nerved (very rarely 5- to 7-nerved), clasping at base and margins thinly ciliolate. The second glume is ovate oblong, short, awned and 5-nerved; sometimes with partial nerves at the apex between the central and the lateral nerves, and then 5- to 7- or 5- to 9-nerved, hispidly hairy on the nerves, margins ciliolate. The third glume is as long as the second, ovate-oblong and the apex abruptly ending in a stout scabrid nerved awn, varying in length from 1/4 to 3/8 inch, rarely 1 inch; 5- to 7-nerved (two partial at tip), paleate and sometimes with three stamens; palea is hyaline, ovate-oblong with infolded margins. The fourth glume is smooth, shining, broadly oblong, faintly 5-nerved, apex rounded or cuspidate with a few cilia; paleate with a single bisexual flower; palea is similar to the glume in structure. Anthers are orange yellow, and lodicules are very small. Stigmas are white. Grain is smooth and ovoid.
This grass grows in paddy fields and wet places generally. It is considered to be a very good fodder grass in Australia and America. This is the "Barn-yard" grass of the Americans, highly valued as a fodder grass.
Distribution.—Throughout India in wet places and in paddy fields.
Panicum stagninum, Retz.
It is an annual. The stems are glabrous, creeping and somewhat prostrate at the base, and the upper portion is erect, 3 to 4 feet long, and rooting at the nodes in the geniculate portion of the stem.
The leaf-sheath is smooth, striate, glabrous, sometimes pubescent about the lower nodes, varying in length from 1-1/2 to 4-1/2 inches. The ligule is distinct, consisting of a fringe of stiff hairs.
The leaf-blade is linear-lanceolate, acuminate or acute, base rounded, glabrous, smooth below, especially in the lower part, and scabrid above and in the upper part, 6 to 12 inches long, by 1/4 to 3/8 inch; the lower leaves have their blades somewhat narrower at the base than in the middle, but the blades in the upper part of the stem and in the middle are of the same breadth; margins are very minutely serrate.