PLATE 149. 



PANICUM ISACHNE (Roth, ex Koem et Schult, 99,458). (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. p. 390). 



ANNUAL. Culms geniculately ascending from a sometimes decumbent and 

 rooting base, very slender, 1-2 feet long, terete or angular, glabrous, 3 to many - 

 noded, much branched below, simple above. Sheaths rather tight, terete or 

 subterete, strongly striate, softly hairy or glabrous, except at the minutely 

 villous nodes, the upper shorter than the internodes. Ligule a dense fringe of 

 stiff hairs. Blades linear-lanceolate from a rounded base, acute, 1 -2 J inches long, 

 by 1-2|- lines wide, flat or involute, rather rigid, softly hairy or quite glabrous, 

 margins very scabrid. 



FALSE SPIKES 2-10, secimcl or subsecund, on an usually adpressed to a filiform 

 scabrid axis ; as long as, or longer than the internodes, very slender, ^-1 inch long. 

 Rhachis filiform, wavy, triquetrous, scabrid, 1-3 inches long. Pedicels solitary, very 

 short, stout, scabrid or bristly, tips thickened with hyaline margins. 



SPIKELETS 2-ranked, secund, contiguous, oblong, subacute or obtuse, about 1 

 line long, pallid with purplish tips, softly pubescent. Glumes, lower facing the 

 rhachis, minute, nerveless, rarely line long and 1 -nerved ; upper membranous, 

 oblong, 5-nerved, minutely hairy. Lower floret usually barren, sometimes male. 

 Valve like the upper glume but narrower, 5-3-nerved, pale very obtuse, subequal 

 to the valve in male, shorter in barren florets, Perfect floret elliptic-oblong, 

 rounded at both ends, \-\ line long. Valve subcoriaceous, faintly 5 -nerved, 

 shining, whitish, finely granulate. Anthers ^ line long. Grain oblong-ellipsoid 

 TJ- line long, hilum orbicular, !> length of the grain. 



Habitat : NATAL, Riet Vlei 4,000 feet alt., Buchanan 215, 216. 

 Also in Basutoland and Bechuanaland. 



Drawn from Buchanan's specimens, the only ones in the Government 

 Herbarium. 



Fiji'. 1, Upper glume. Jjnrer Jioret. -2, lower valve, front view ; o, same, back view ; 

 4, pale. Perfect floret. 5, upper valve; 6, pale : 7. stamens, pistil and lodic'ules : 8. 

 ligule. Ail cnluryed. 



