Ochlandra travancorica var hirsuta Gamble

Common Name:

Habit
Culms : Tufted Height: 2-6m  Diameter:2.5-5cm  Culm Color: Grayish green
Internode Length: 45-60cm  Culm Sheath Colour: 20 cm long, thin longitudinally wrinkled and striate, covered densely withappressed golden or black, bulbous-based hairs when young, glabrous afterwards, truncately rounded above with afringe of erect stiff bristles, ciliate on the margins; imperfect blade 4 cm long, narrow, subulate; ligule narrow, entire.

Length of Leaf: 9-32 cm  Breadth of Leaf : 5-6 cm  Leaf Shape: oblong-lanceolate

Habitat:   Altitude:   Soil:

Native to:
Introduced to: Kerala(Thenmala, Ranni, Konni, Trivandrum)

Description of Inflorescence and Flower: sub-verticiliate spicate panicle, a few large fertile spikelets, few much smaller sterile spikelets in theaxils of ovate-lanceolate bracts. Spikelets thickly clothed with light brown velvety pubescence. Spikelets ovate or oblongovate 2.5-3.5 x 0.6-0.8 cm, empty glumes 3, concave ovate, truncate at the top and tipped with a subulate apex, manynerved.Flowering glume 4.5 cm long, oblong with a ciliate tip, margin inrolled. Palea 4.5 cm, slightly narrower, thinnerand acute, faintly 2-keeled; lodicules 3, unequal, membranous 2.6-2.9 cm long, 1-4-nerved, one bifid. Stamens up to120, monadelphous, filaments slender; anthers 2-2.5 cm long, narrow, apiculate and hairy. Ovary narrow, smooth, perigynium 3-4 angled; style linear, stigma 5, plumose.
Flowering Cycle:   Flowering Reported:Kerala, Kulathupuzha(1992, 1993)

Propagation:Seeds, rhizome planting, culm cutting

Uses: Basket, handicrafts, pulp and paper, ply, rayon

References: Seethalakshmi K. K ,1998, Ohrnberger D,1999