Panicum antidotale Retz.

Panicum antidotale is found throughout Pakistan, particularly in desert regions. It is an excellent sand binder, but of doubtful value as fodder.

Perennial with creeping woody rootstock; culms (30)90-180 cm high, woody, erect or ascending, usually branched, the lower internodes often pruinose. Leaf-blades linear, 6-30 cm long, (2.5)4-14 mm wide, flat, glabrous, sharply pointed. Panicle narrowly pyramidal to broadly oblong or ovate, 13-32 cm long, varying from copiously, branched with the branches subverticillate to sparingly branched with the spikelets condensed about the distant branches. Spikelets elliptic, 2.4-3.2 (-3.6) mm long, glabrous, acute; lower glume broadly ovate, membranous with broad hyaline margins, half to two-thirds as long as the spikelet, rarely less, 3-5-nerved, acute; upper glume with broad hyaline margins, 7-9(-11)-nerved; lower lemma 7-9-nerved, its palea almost as long; upper lemma pallid, smooth and shining.

N.W. India, Nepal, Madras, Afghanistan, Iran.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); tropical Africa; Arabia, through Iran and Afghanistan to India.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-October.