hartaceous,
paleate; _palea_ is like the glume in texture. _Anthers_ are yellow and
_stigmas_ are white. _Lodicules_ are two and small.

This seems to be a good fodder grass. It grows in all kinds of soils. It
is not so common in the plains as on the hills, though it occurs in the
plains at the base of the hills.

_Distribution._--Throughout India.

[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Digitaria sanguinalis, _Var. extensum_.]

=Digitaria sanguinalis, _Scop._=

_Var. extensum._

This grass is an annual with stems ascending from a prostrate or
geniculate, rooting branched base, greenish or purplish, glabrous and
varying in length from 1 to 2-1/2 feet.

The _leaf-sheath_ is thin, herbaceous, rather loose, keeled and
glabrous. The _ligule_ is a distinct membrane, truncate, rarely
irregularly toothed. The _nodes_ are glabrous.

The _leaf-blade_ is linear-lanceolate, acuminate, flat when mature and
convolute when young, glabrous, 1 to 12 inches long and 1/6 to 1/3 inch
broad, the margin is very closely and finely serrate, the midrib is
prominent with three or four main veins on each side.

The _inflorescence_ consists of a few or many spikes, corymbosely
arranged on a short angular slightly rough axis, erect or spreading,
1-1/2 to 4 inches long, the lowest ones in whorls of two to four; the
rachis is nearly triquetrous, laterally winged, base thickened and with
a few long white hairs; the peduncle is cylindric, smooth, 6 to 12
inches long.

[Illustration: Fig. 75.--Digitaria sanguinalis, _Var. extensum_.

1. A portion of spike; 2, 3 and 3a. the back and front views of a
spikelet; 4, 5 and 6 the first, second and the third glume,
respectively; 7. palea of the third glume; 8. anthers, lodicules and the
ovary.]

The _spikelets_ are oblong-lanceolate, acute, about 1/10 inch long,
binate, one pedicelled and the other subsessile, the pedicel is angular,
about 1/2 to 2/3 the length of the spikelet.

There are three _glumes_ in the spikelet corresponding to the second,
third and fourth glumes of a Panicum, the first glume being obsolete.
The _first glume_ is membranous, ovate-lanceolate, acute, about 1/3 the
length of the spikelet or very much less, 3-nerved, densely ciliate
along the margins and silkily hairy between the nerves. The _second
glume_ is greenish, oblong lanceolate, acute, ciliate along the margins
and with fine appressed silky hairs between the lateral nerves,
5-nerved, palea is very minute or absent. The _third