7. Axonopus, Beauv.
These are annual or perennial grasses. Inflorescence is a panicle consisting of digitate or whorled, slender or stout spike-like racemes. Spikelets are solitary, binate or fasciculate, 2-flowered, jointed on the pedicel and awned. There are four glumes. The first glume is the shortest, ovate, acuminate, aristate or cuspidate, hyaline, glabrous and 3-nerved. The second glume is ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or awned, 5-nerved, lateral nerves being marginal and hairy. The third glume is oblong or oblong ovate, acute, 5-nerved, paleate, male; palea is very short and small, bipartite. The fourth glume is as long as the third and the second, oblong or ovate, coriaceous, narrowed into a straight terminal awn, paleate and bisexual; palea is oblong, coriaceous and 2-nerved. Lodicules are cuneate. Stamens are three with linear anthers. Stigmas are linear, laterally exserted. Grain is oblong, free within the hardened glume and its palea.
Fig. 107.—Axonopus cimicinus.
Axonopus cimicinus, Beauv.
It is a perennial grass. Stems are tufted, erect or slightly decumbent at the base, 1 to 2 feet long.
The leaf-sheath is distinctly striate, covered with scattered long tubercle-based hairs, very rarely glabrous, keeled. The ligule consists of a row of hairs. The nodes are hairy.