The spikelets are glabrous, ovate-oblong, acute, 1/8 inch, 1- or 2-seriate, subsessile, pale green, occasionally purplish on one side.
There are four glumes. The first glume is membranous, broadly ovate, obtuse with margins overlapping at the base, hardly half the length of the third glume, usually 5-nerved but occasionally 7-nerved. The attachment of the first glume is not close to that of the second glume but is far lower. The second glume is ovate-acute, 7-nerved. The third glume is equal to the second, 5-nerved, paleate, empty; the palea is narrow, hyaline, acute. The fourth glume is ellipsoidal, obtuse, chartaceous, minutely and obscurely rugulose, faintly 3-nerved, with the base somewhat thickened. Palea is similar to the glume in texture. Anthers are orange-yellow. Lodicules are minute and fleshy. Style branches are purple.
This grass is fairly common in open and loamy and sandy soils. The form (var. brevifolium, Wight & Arnott) is fairly common in Coimbatore District.
Distribution.—Plains of India and Ceylon. Not recorded from the Bombay Presidency. It occurs in China, Malaya and Australia.
Fig. 99.—Panicum interruptum.