PLATE 129. 



ANDROPOGON DICHROOS (Steud. Syn. PL Glum. i. 389). 



PERENNIAL. CULMS rather slender, erect, over 2 feet long, glabrous, terete, 

 4-5-noded and simple below the panicle. Sheaths terete or slightly keeled in the 

 upper part, tight, glabrous, shorter than the internodes, except the sub-persistent 

 lowest ones; ligules membranous, rotundate-ovate, ciliolate, up to 1 line long. 

 Blades linear from a rounded base, long tapering to a fine point, over foot long, 

 by l^-3g lines broad, glabrous or scantily hairy at the base, scabrid below and 

 along the margins, turning reddish. 



PANICLE oblong, about 1 foot long, lax. Spathes very narrow, lanceolate, 

 acuminate, 1J-2 inches long, obliquely erect or divaricate, reddish, glabrous or 

 spreadingly hairy, particularly below. Common peduncles filiform, more or less 

 curved at the upper end, or at length strict, shortly exserted from near the tip of 

 the spathe or shortly exceeding it, with long, spreading tubercle-based hairs bel<>\v 

 the tip. Racemes 4-10 lines long, at length horizontally spreading, or deflexed, 

 on very short hirsute peduncles, falling together from the tip of the common 

 peduncle ; joints 2-5, filiform, obliquely truncate, 1^- line long, shortly ciliate ; 

 pedicels very similar. Spikelets of the lowest pair of the sub-sessile raceme alike, 

 barren, the sessile of all the other pairs perfect, the pedicelled barren. 7V/;/<'r/ 

 gpikelets oblong, lanceolate, 2 lines long, pale. Glumes, lower sub chartaceoua 

 above, membranous towards the base, truncate, or minutely 2-toothed, dorsal ly 

 flattened, scantily pubescent to almost villous, with whitish, or above with reddish 

 hairs, intracarinal nerves 5-7, evanescent below ; keels rigidly ciliate above, callus 

 shortly bearded; upper rigidly membranous, obtuse, 3 -nerved, ciliate above. Valves, 

 lower oblong, truncate, faintly 2-nerved, ciliate ; />JH>I- shortly 2-toothed, glabrous. 

 Awn slender, f-1 inch long, kneed and pubescent below the middle. Pale 0. 

 Anthers -f line long. Pedicelled spikelets linear-lanceolate, up to 2^ lines long, 

 rufously hirsute. Glumes, lower acuminate, sometimes mucronate, 9-1 1 -nerved ; 

 upper 3-nerved, ciliate above. Valves 0, or the lower broadly oblong, up to \ line 

 long, ciliate, and the upper reduced to a microscopic ciliate scale. 



Habitat : NATAL. Drege 4357 ; Umpumulo, Buchanan ; Biggarsberg, /tch- 

 niann 7116 ; without precise locality, Buchanan 303. 



Figured from Buchanan's specimen in the Government Herbarium. 



In the specimen in the Herbarium the panicle is more than 1 foot long. 



tig. 1) t'ulrn, leaf and panicle about natural size. Sessile spihelct 2, lower glume; 

 3, upper glume ; 4, lower valve ; 5, pistil, stamens and lodicules : 6, upper valve. Pedicelled 

 spikelets 7, lower glume ; 8, upper glume. Except Jig. 7, all enlarged. 



