A flora of Manila - Rainforestation

GRAMINEAE 79
1. M. GRANULARIS L. f.
A slender, more or less hairy grass 20 to 60 cm high, erect, at length
much-branched. Leaves 15 cm long or less, 3 to 12 mm wide, papillose-
hirsute, margins ciliate. Spikes 1 to 2 cm long, slender. Sessile spikelet
about 1 mm in diameter, the pedicellate one about 2 mm long.
In dry grass lands, near Fort McKinley, fl. Sept.-Dec. ; widely distributed
in the Philippines, certainly introduced. Tropics generally.
12. OPHIURUS Gaertner
Annual or perennial, erect, fine or coarse grasses, the spikes solitary
or fascicled, fragile, cylindric. Spikelets 1-flowered, solitary, sessile in
the joints of the rachis, the lateral ones absent or very rudimentary.
Glumes 4, the first thickly coriaceous, the second thin, the third and fourth
hyaline. (Greek "snake'' and "tail" in allusion to the shape of the spike.)
area.
Species 2, Africa, Asia, and Malaya, both in the Philippines, 1 in our
1. O. monostachyus Presl.
A slender, somewhat wiry, erect or ascending, loosely tufted, glabrous
grass 20 to 40 cm high. Leaves linear, 15 cm long or less, about 2 mm
wide. Spikes solitary, slender, cylindric, 5 to 10 cm long, 2 mm in diameter,
the spikelets immersed in the joints of the rachis, about 4 mm long.
Banks of old rice paddies and in open grass lands, Caloocan, San Juan
del Monte, etc., fl. Sept.-March; not common in the Philippines. Marianne
Islands, Formosa, Hongkong, and Tonkin.
13. APLUDA Linneaus
Tall, leafy, erect or scandent grasses, the stems usually more or less
decumbent and rooting at the lower nodes, branched. Leaves flat, numerous.
Inflorescence of many, small, simple spikes, each subtended by a
special thin spathe, together forming a leafy panicle. Spikes of one linear
joint, swollen at the base, jointed on the top of the peduncle at the base
of the spathe. Spikelets 3, one sessile, 2-flowered, flowers perfect, one
pedicelled, imperfect, reduced to a small glume, and one terminal, male or
neuter, rarely bisexual. Glumes 4, the fourth awned or not, entire or
2-toothed. Grain oblong. (Said to be from the resemblance of the glumes
to chaff.)
A genus of one or two variable species, India to Malaya and Polynesia,
one in the Philippines.
1. A. mutica L. Cauacauayan (Tag.).
A tall, erect or subscandent, somewhat slender and glaucous grass,
glabrous or nearly so, 1 to 2 m high, the stems round, smooth, branched,
solid. Leaves acuminate, 10 to 30 cm long, 5 to 10 wide, base narrowed,
usually somewhat petioled, the upper ones gradually shorter. Spathes
subtending the spikelets lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, variable in length,
longer or shorter than the peduncles, the spikes about 8 mm long, green
or purplish, the spikelets awnless.
In thickets, fl. Sept.-Feb.; widely distributed in the Philippines. India
to China, Malaya, and Polynesia.