PLATE 143. 



DlGITARIA TENUIFLORA (BeailV. Agrost. 5 1 ). Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. p. 380. 



ANNUAL OR SUB-PERENNIAL. CULMS fascicled, very slender, prostrate and 

 rooting, or ascending or sub-erect, ^-l^ toot long, glabrous, maiiy-noded, often 

 branched. Sheaths rather lax, the lower more or less hairy, sometimes bearded at 

 the nodes ; ligules very short, membranous. Blades lanceolate to linear, acute. 

 -4 inches long, spreading, flat, glabrous, rarely hairy. 



RACEMES usually 2-3, rarely more, very slender, 1-3 inches long, erect or 

 spreading. Rhachis finely linear, margins scabrid. Pedicels 2-rarely 3-nate, 

 unequal, tips discoid. 



SPIKELETS adpressed to the rhachis, the superposed distant by rather less than 

 their own length, elliptic-oblong, acute or subacute, g J line long, pale or purplish. 

 Glumes, lower 0; upper 5-3-nerved, very finely and adpressed ly silky with wrinkled 

 hairs. Valves, lower similar and subequal to the upper glume, flat. 7 -nerved; 

 >i/>j>er subchartaceous, ovate-oblong, slightly shorter than the lower, flaps of pale 

 overlapping below. Anthers \ line long. 



: NATAL. Near Durban, Drcye ; Durban Flat, lliirliaicix, :>o ; near 

 Umpumulo, Buchanan, 204a ; and without precise locality, (jrerrard, 588. 



Drawn from Buchanan's 204a. 

 Through the tropics of the Old World. 



Fig. 1, Ligule ; 2, upper glume; 3, lower valve: 4, upper valve: .">. pale: fi. rli 

 witli jx^lieels. All eitltirr/rd. 



