Description: Annual herbs, culms 20-40 cm high, erect; upper nodes villous, lower ones glabrous. Leaves lanceolate, 1-8 x 0.1-0.3 cm, base narrow; sheaths slightly keeled; ligules membranous, truncate at apex. Racemes 1 or 2, 1-4 cm long, shortly exserted from spathes; joints linear-turbinate, 4-5 mm long, extremely oblique at apex, coriaceous, densely villous on one side. Spikelets greenish-yellow, in groups of 2 or 3, one sessile and the other pedicelled. Sessile spikelets lanceolate, 10-12 mm long( excluding an arista, 4-5 mm), awned; callus sharply acute, 2-3 mm long, densely silky villous; lower glume lanceolate, acuminate, 7-8 x 1-1.5 mm, coriaceous, faintly 3-5-nerved, keels narrowly winged, wings subequal, hyaline; upper glume 3-lobed, 5-6 x 1.5-2 mm, with a broad arista 6-8 mm long, coriaceous, faintly 5-7-nerved, margins infolded, hyaline; lemma notched, 4-5 x 1-1.5 mm, awned, subcoriaceous, margins delicate, hyaline; awns 35-45 mm long, geniculate, column 14-16 mm, chestnut brown, bristle pale, scaberulous; palea ovate-acute; 1.5-2 x 0.75 mm, delicate, hyaline; stamens 3, anthers 1.5-2 mm long, grain oblong, 3-4 x 1 mm. Pedicelled spikelets lanceolate, acuminate, 10-12 mm long, empty. Pedicels turbinate, 3-4 mm long, densely villous on one side; callus glabrous or sparsely bearded; lower glume oblique-lanceolate, acuminate, 7-10 x 1.5-2 mm, chartaceous, faintly 7-9 nerved, broadly winged on one side, wing hyaline; upper glume lanceolate, shortly aristate, 10-12 x 1 mm, chartaceous, faintly 3-nerved, slightly keeled, margins hyaline.

Habit: Herb

Flowering & Fruiting: September-November

District(s): Kannur

Medicinal:

Habitat: Dry, rocky grasslands

Distribution: South India (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:

Localities: Mukkarikandam

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