A flora of Manila - Rainforestation

GRAMINEAE 71
Abundant in some fish ponds in salt water, entirely submerged, near
Paranaque. in places quite covering the bottom; Ceylon and Borneo.
5. THALASSIA Solander
Submerged herbs growing in salt water, the rootstock slender, creeping,
marked with annulate rings. Leaves in pairs or fascicles at the nodes of
the rootstock, flat, linear, thin or coriaceous, arising from the axil of a
membranaceous sheath. Flowers monoecious, solitary, in a 2-valved spathe.
Male flowers with 3 petaloid sepals, the petals none. Stamens 6. Rudimentary
ovary none. Spathe with its valves connate at the top. Female
flowers: Ovary 1-celled; ovules many. Spathe caducous. Fruit stipitate,
globose, smooth, rugose, or echinate, coriaceous, 6-valved, the valves persis-
tent, spreading. (Greek "of the sea.")
Species 2. tropical shores of both hemispheres, 1 in the Philippines.
»
1. T. hemprichii (Ehrenb.) Aschers.
Rootstock 2 to 3 mm in diameter, rather closely annulate. The young
shoots covered with hyaline sheaths. Leaves green, coriaceous when fresh,
membranaceous when dry, 3 to 20 cm long, 8 to 10 mm wide, somewhat
falcate, tip rounded, 2 to 5 in each fascicle. Fruit softly echinate.
Shallow water of Manila Bay, occasionally washed up on the beach at
Pasay. Of local occurrence in the Philippines. Red Sea through the
Indian Ocean to Polynesia.
13. GRAMINEAE ' (GRASS OR Zacate Family)
Slender or coarse, annual or perennial plants of various habit, or in one
tribe, the bamboos, woody and tree-like. Stems jointed, terete or compressed;
internodes usually hollow, sometimes solid. Leaves simple, usually
long and narrow, entire, parallel-veined, the sheathing portion distinct from
thd blade, split down one side. Inflorescence various, of few to many spike-
lets in panicles, racemes, spikes, or heads, the spikelets composed of 2 to
many, 2-ranked, imbricated scales (glumes), the lowest ones normally
empty, sometimes wanting, one or more of the upper glumes containing a
flower enclosed by the bract-like palea. Flowers perfect or staminate,
sometimes monoecious or dioecious. Stamens 1 to 6, usually 3. Ovary
1-celled, 1-ovuled. Fruit a seed-like grain (caryopsis).
Genera about 345, species over 4,000, in all parts of the world, about 75
genera and 225 species known from the Philippines.
1. Spikelets 1-, rarely 2-flowered, falling from the pedicel entire or with
certain joints of the rachis, the rachilla not produced.
2. Spikelets cylindric or somewhat dorsally compressed; empty glumes
manifest.
3. Flowering glume and palea hyaline, much more delicate in texture
than are the empty glumes.
4. Spikelets unisexual, on separate inflorescences or on different
parts of the same inflorescence. (Tribe Maydeae.)
5. Staminate and pistillate inflorescences on different parts of the
same plant 1- Zea
' For the grasses of the entire Archipelago see Merrill, E. D., "An
Enumeration of Philippine Gramineae with Keys to the Genera and
species."' Philip. Journ. Sci. 1 (1906) Suppl. 307-391.