PLATE 147. 



PANICUM BRIZANTHUM (Hochst. in Flora, 1841, Intell. 1.19 (name only) and 

 ex A Rich. Tent. Fl. Abyss. 11,363.) (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. p. 386). 



PERENNIAL. CULMS erect or geniculately ascending from a short rhizome, 

 stout in tall specimens, 1^-6 feet long, glabrous or hirsute with tubercle-based 

 hairs, 4-6 or sometimes many-noded, upper internodes exserted. 



LEAVES glabrous or hirsute with fine tubercle-based hairs ; sheaths rather 

 tight, terete, striate ; ligule a narrow fimbriate rim ; blades linear to sublanceolate, 

 acute to acu.minate, 2-15 inches long, by 3-8 lines wide, usually flat, firm, light 

 green, margins cartilaginous, spinulous. 



FALSE SPIKES, solitary or more usually 2-8 on a slender triquetrous scabrid 

 or rarely almost smooth and often hairy, common axis, distant, often curved, and 

 more or less spreading, rather stout, 2-6 inches long ; rhachis slender, linear, 

 dorsally keeled, scabrid and more or less fringed with tubercle-based hairs, 

 villous at the base, internodes 1^-2 lines long ; pedicels solitary, alternate from near 

 the edges, very short, stout. 



SPIKELI-:TS usually 1 -ranked, contiguous, ellipsoid, obtuse, turgid, about 2i 

 lines long, pallid, with purple tips, glabrous. Glumes, Amvr membranaceous, very 

 broad, clasping, obtuse, 1-1^ line long, 7-11 nerved, often purple: upper firmly 

 membranaceous, oblong, very concave, 2-2^ lines long, 7-9 nerved, nerves anas- 

 tomosing above. Lower floret male, valve similar to the upper glume, 5-nerved ; 

 pale broad, elliptic, obtuse, 2 -keeled ; anthers Inline long. J'< rfect floret equalling 

 the upper glume, oblong ; valve crustaceous with an obscure callous tip, very finely 

 pitted, 5-nerved, whitish ; flaps of pale very broad above the base. 



Habitat: NATAL.- Near Umpumulo, Bin-limnn, 183; Inanda, H'J 1579; 

 Fenton Vacy, Wood, 1577. 



Also in Tropical Africa. 



Fi-. 1, Lowest i>-lume : 2, upper flume 1 : 3. lower valve : 4, pule ; 5, stamens and 

 lodicules ; 6, upper valve; 7, pale ; 8, stamens, ovarv, style, stig-mas and lodicules. All 

 titlurycd. 



