Sehima notata - Kumaon Muraina Grass

Kumaon Muraina Grass is a perennial grass with stems 50-120 cm long. Butt sheaths hairless or velvet-hairy; leaf-sheaths hairless or bristly, with bearded oral hairs. Leaf-blades are flat or involute, 10-40 cm long and 3-6 mm wide, bristly and hairy on both surfaces, with tapering tips. Flowers are borne in a single raceme, 9-15 cm long. Rachis is flattened, fragile at nodes, with fringed margins; internodes wedge-shaped, 5-5.5 mm long, with oblique, crateriform tips. Spikelets are paired, appressed, lanceshaped, dorsally compressed, 1.2 cm long, falling entire. Fertile spikelets are stalkless, accompanied by well-developed, male, stalked sterile spikelets, 1.1-1.2 cm long. Glumes are dissimilar, exceeding the florets; lower glume leathery, 8-veined, 2-keeled and 2-fid, with a single awn; upper glume papery, 7-veined, 1-keeled, fringed with hairs and bearing a 1-1.1 cm awn. Basal sterile florets are male, with a 0.9-1 cm hyaline lemma and palea. Fertile lemma is oblong, hyaline, 3-veined, with fringed margins and a 2-fid tip. Awn geniculate, 4.2-4.5 cm long, with a twisted, hairless column. Anthers are 3, 4-5 mm long. Kumaon Muraina Grass is found in Western Himalayas and Western Ghats, at altitudes of 1600-2300 m.