A flora of Manila - Rainforestation

GRAMINEAE 103
In open grass lands, Caloocan to La Loma, fl. all the year. Known
only from Luzon.
38. CYNODON Persoon
Perennial, slender, creeping grasses, the leaves narrow, flat. Spikelets
small, 1- or 2-seriate, unilateral on 3 to 7, slender, digitately arranged
spikes. Glumes 3, the first and second empty, thin, keeled, the third
broader, thin, awnless. Grain oblong, free within the glumes. (Greek
"dog" and "tooth.")
Species 5 or 6, mostly Australian, 2 in the Philippines.
Spikes 3 or 4, mostly less than 3 cm long; flowering stems mostly less than
20 cm high 1. C. dactylon
Spikes 5 to 7, 8 to 10 cm long; flowering stems about 40 cm high.
2. C. arcuatua
1. C. dactylon (L.) Pers. Grama (Sp.-Fil.) ; Bermuda Grass.
Stems prostrate, usually widely creeping, branched an({ rooting at the
nodes, sending up erect, short, flowering branches usually less than 20 cm
high. Leaves 1.5 to 3 cm long. Spikes 3 or 4, 2 to 5 cm long, spreading,
green or purplish. Spikelets imbricate, about 1.5 mm long.
In lawns, along roadsides, and in waste places generally, fl. all the year;
throughout the Philippines, possibly introduced. In all warm countries.
2. C. arcuatus Presl.
An erect or spreading and ascending grass, the flowering stems 35 to
60 cm high, sometimes geniculate and rooting at the lower nodes. Leaves
narrowly lanceolate, 6 to 15 cm long, 4 to 5 mm wide. Spikes 5 to 7,
spreading, usually green, 8 to 10 cm long. Spikelets 2 mm long.
In open grass lands, San Pedro Macati, fl. Aug.-Jan.; rather widely distributed
in Luzon. Endemic.
39. CHLORIS Swartz
Erect, annual or perennial, usually tufted grasses with flat or convolute
leaves. Spikelets 2-seriate, on one side of the digitately arranged spikes,
the rachilla sometimes produced beyond the third glume and bearing one
or more empty glumes, awned. First and second glumes unequal, acute or
mucronate, or the second awned, the third glume acute or cleft, usually
awned.
Species about 40, mostly tropical, two in the Philippines, one apparently
introduced. (Named for Chloris, the goddess of flowers.)
1. C. BARBATA (L.) Sw.
A tufted, erect grass 0.3 to 1 m high. Leaves flat, 10 to 20 cm long,
linear-lanceolate. Spikes usually ascending, purple, 5 to 20, strict or
flexuous, 5 to 8 cm long. Spikelets 2 to 2.5 mm long, with 3 slender awns.
Very common in open waste places, fl. all the year; in and about towns
throughout the Philippines but certainly introduced. Tropics generally,
but probably a native of tropical America.
40. ELEUSINE Gaertner
Annual or perennial tufted gx-asses. Leaves flat. Spikelets 3- to 12-
flowered, all perfect (except the terminal one), sessile, 2- or 3-seriate,
secund, imbricate, pointing forward, forming digitate or whorled spikes,
laterally compressed, not jointed at the base; rachilla continuous between