Description: Perennial herbs; culms many, erect from branched creeping root-stock, up to 1.5 m long, slender, c. 3 mm wide at the base, terete and glabrous. Leaves distichous, more or less equally spaced below and crowded from the middle upwards; sheath up to 8 cm long, rounded, keeled on the back upwards, striate and glabrous; ligule c. 0.5 mm long, membraneous and densely fimbriate at the apex; blade continuous with the sheath, up to 50 cm x 6 mm, broadest at the base, tapering to a caudate-acuminate apex, sharply keeled on the midrib below and depressed above, sparsely pilose above and below, especially on the margins towards the base with long bulbous-based hairs, often ultimately glabrescent, scaberulous on the margins and midrib below towards the apex. Inflorescence more or less contracted, ovate to lanceolate panicle, up to 12 x 5 cm and 3-4 noded; branches filiform, dilated into an oblique cupuliform apex fringed with dense short brownish hairs, mostly whorled, up to 4 cm long and ascending. Sessile spikelet 6-8 mm long including the 1-1.5 (-2) mm long callus, densely bearded with brownish hairs; lower glumes thickly coriaceous, more or less oblong-elliptic in profile, 5-6 x 0.5 mm (when folded), thickened and rounded on the back, acute at the apex, ciliate on the back towards the apex and faintly 7-nerved; upper glume thickly coriaceous, oblong-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic in profile, boat- shaped 5.5-6.5x1.5 mm (when folded), awned from the notched apex, thickened and rounded on the back, thinner towards the sparsely ciliate hyaline margins, sparsely papillose to spinulose usually in two rows, closer to the back, one on either side, sometimes one on the back, mostly from the middle or from the middle upwards, often those towards the apex continued into the base of the awn as short cilia; awn 4-8 mm long sparsely pubescent to scaberulous from the base upwards; lower lemma hyaline, oblanceolate, 4.5-5 x 1 mm apically notched, long ciliate on the margins except towards the base and apex, epaleate and empty; upper lemma hyaline, 5.5-6 mm long, shortly notched at the apex and awned from the notch, 3-nerved, epaleate but bisexual; awn up to 35 mm long with a column up to 18 mm long, densely scaberulous-pubescent on the column and scaberulous upwards. Pedicelled spikelet elliptic, 5-6 x 1.25 mm; pedicel 2-2.5 mm long, ciliate on the sides with brownish hairs, progressively longer upwards; lower glume subcoriaceous to chartaceous, elliptic, 5-6 x 1.25 mm, broadly rounded on the back, shortly inrolled on the margins, 9- nerved with the mid-nerve slightly raised on the outside into a short keel at the acute to shortly acuminate apex, sparsely bristly ciliate on the margins towards the apex and on the short keel, glabrous otherwise; upper glume subcoriaceous to chartaceous, linear-lanceolate, up to 6x 1.5 mm (when spread), 3-nerved with the mid-nerve slightly raised on the outside at the acuminate apex, incurved along the lateral nerves, thinly hyaline and sparsely long-ciliate on the margins except towards the base; lower lemma linear-oblanceolate to linear-elliptic-oblanceolate, 5-5.5 mm long, subcoriaceous; to subhyaline towards the base and hyaline upwards, acute notched at the apex, 3-nerved, incurved along the lateral nerves and long- ciliate on the margins from the middle upwards, epaleate and empty; upper lemma hyaline, elliptic-lanceolate, c 4.5 mm long, acute-notched at the apex, 3-nerved, incurved along the faint lateral nerves, epaleate but male. Lodicules 2, c 0.65 mm long, cuneate at the base and truncate-lobed at the apex. Stamens 3; anthers 2-3 mm long yellow to reddish-brown. Ovary c 0.4 mm long; style short, c 1 mm long; stigma c 2 mm long and brown.

Habit: Herb

Flowering & Fruiting: September-January

District(s): Pathanamthitta

Medicinal:

Habitat: Rocky hills in the plains

Distribution: Southern Western Ghats (Kerala)

Aquatic: No

Epiphyte(s): No

Saprophyte: No

Stem parasite: No

Root parasite: No

Flower colour(s):

Weed: No

Monocot/Dicot: Monocotyledonous Plants

Exotic: No

Garden: No

Edible: No

Vegetable: No

Endemic to: Kerala

IUCN status:

Altitude: -150

Localities:

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