sessile spikelets awned or not, pedicellate spikelets unawned; lower floret staminate; upper floret hermaphrodite. Glumes similar , and more or less leathery or thin.
Lemmas membraneous. Palea reduced to a membraneous scale. Lodicules 2, free and fleshy. Stamens 2-3. Ovary glabrous. Stigmas 2.
A good fodder when young suitable for all classes of animals, good hay and silage, stalks used for making hats, growing at the edge of woodlands and in hedges,
thickets, on moist or dry stony soils, forest margins.
5.1. Apluda mutica L. Sp. Pl. 1: 82. 1753.
Apluda aristata L. Cent. Pl. II: 7. 1756. Calamina gigantea P. Beauv. Ess. Agrostrgr. 128, 157. 1812.
Apluda gigantea P. Beauv. Spreng. Syst. Veg. 1: 290. 1825. Calamina humilis J. Presl. Reliq. Haenk. 14-5: 344. 1830.
Apluda humilis J. Presl. Kunth. Revis. Gramin. 1: Suppl. XLI. 1830. Apluda communis Nees. Gramineae 62. 1841.
Apluda inermis Regel. Trudy Glavn. Bot. Sada 7: 658. 1881.
Plants perennial. Culms 50-350 cm long, tufted, slender, straggling, creeping or scandent, base decumbent, rooting from lower nodes, branched in upper part. Sheaths
usually glabrous. Ligule 1-2 mm, a ciliolate membrane. Blades 8-30 cm by 2-20 mm, flat, apex attenuate to a setaceous. Synflorescence compound, paniculate, 5-35 cm
long. Inflorescence a solitary raceme tightly embraced by a spatheole, terminal and axillary. Spatheole 3-9 cm long, ovate, membraneous. Racemes single, bearing a triad
of spikelets. Rachis obsolete. Spikelets in threes: Fertile spikelets sessile; 1 in the cluster. Sterile spikelets: companion sterile spikelets rudimentary and well-developed,
male, lanceolate, dorsally compressed, 2-5 mm long, as long as fertile spikeletes; glumes herbaceous, acute, muticous; lemmas 2, enclosed by glumes, muticous. Fertile
spikelets comprising 1 basal sterile floret, 1 fertile florets, without rachilla extension, oblong, laterally compressed, 2-6 cm long. Glumes dissimilar, exceeding apex of
florets, firmer than fertile lemma. Lower glume lanceolate, as long as spikelets, coriaceous, without keels, apex dentate, bifid. Upper glume primary nerve
scaberulous, apex acute. Florets: basal sterile floret male, with palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret oblong, slightly shorter than spikelets, hyaline, 3-nerved, acute.
Fertile lemma oblong, 4 mm long, hyaline, without keel, 3-nerved, apex entire, or lobed, bifid, muticous, or awned, principal lemma awn from a sinus, straight, or
geniculate, 4-12 mm long. Palea hyaline, without nerved, no keels.
Notes Found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Pasific. This is a polymorphic species
widespread in tropical Asia. Good fodder value, palatable to stock when young, young grass eaten by buffaloes.
Distribution at Sulawesi
Central: Between Palu and Palolo, Alt. 550 m. South: Maros.
Habitat
Ditch and river banks, wet places, along roadsides, on poor soil, in waste grounds.
Specimens examined
Lasut 971 WALL; Chin 3539 L; Darnaedi s.n. L; Eyma 3492L; Meijer 10674 BO.
7. ARTHRAXON P. Beauv
. Type: Arthraxon ciliaris P. Beauv. Ess. Agrostogr. 111, pl. 11, f. 6. 1812.
Alectoridia A. Rich. Tent. Fl, Abyss. 2: 447. 1850. Batratherum Nees. Edinburgh New Philos. J. 18: 180-181. 1835.
Lasiolytrum Steud. Flora 29: 18. 1846. Lucaea Kunth. Revis. Gram. 2: 489. 1831.
Pleuroplitis Trin. Fund. Agrost. 174, t. 16. 1820. Psilopogon Hochst. ex A. Rich. Tent. Fl. Abyss. 2: 447. 1852.
From the Greek arthron “a joint” and axon “axis”, referring to the rachis, to the jointed rachides.
About 25 species, Old World Tropics, mainly in India. Plants annual or perennial, herbaceous, slender, often trailing, decumbent or rooting on the lower
nodes. Auricles absent. Ligule a ciliate membrane. Blades linear-lanceolate to ovate- lanceolate. Plants bisexual; terminal and axillary slender subdigitate racemes.
Spikelets solitary and sessile or pairs of sessile and pedicellate spikelets; sessile spikelets awned and with 2 florets; lower floret reduced to a lemma; upper floret
bisexual. Glumes equal or subequal. Lower glume convex or laterally 2-keeled; lemmas membraneous; upper lemma entire and awn, awn sometimes basal; pedicellate
spikelet much reduced or absent or vestigial; palea present or absent. Lodicule 2, free and fleshy. Stamens 2-3. Ovary glabrous.
Shade or open habitats, rainforest, wet places, moist pastures, rocky slopes, old cultivated fields.
Key to the species
1.a. Sessile spikelets
strongly scabrid to spinulose……...7.1. Arthraxon hispidus
b. Sessile spikelets smooth to scaberulos …………..7.2. Arthraxon lancifolius
7.1. Arthraxon hispidus Thunb. Makino. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 26307: 214. 1812.
