Fig. 89.—Panicum colonum.
Panicum colonum, L.
This is a slender annual growing to a height of 2 feet. The stems are creeping below, erect above, and with roots in the lower internodes of the decumbent part of the stem, smooth, dull green or partly purplish.
The leaf-sheath is glabrous and sharply keeled. The nodes are glabrous or obscurely pubescent. There is no ligule.
The leaf-blade is narrow, lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous but sometimes tubercle-based hairs occur just on the margin at the base of the leaf-blade close to the white band, varying in length from 1 to 6 inches and in breadth 3/16 to 5/16 inch; the margin is minutely and distantly serrate, midrib is quite distinct and there are three main veins on each side and three or four smaller between main ones. The blades of the lower leaves are narrow at the base and broader at about the middle but those of the upper are equally broad at the base, as well as at the middle.
Fig. 90.—Panicum colonum.
1 and 2. The front and back view of the spikes; 1a and 2a. the back and the front view of the spikelet; 3, 4 and 5. the first, second and the third glume, respectively; 6. palea of the third glume; 7 and 8. the fourth glume and its palea; 9. ovary anther and lodicules.