PLATE 169. 



SETARIA NIGRIROSTRIS, Dur. & Schinz. (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. , p. 423). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



PERENNIAL, rhizome short, oblique, praemorse. CULMS erect or subgeniculate, 

 slender, ^ to more than 2 feet long, compressed, pube-cent and scabrid just below 

 the panicle and usually more or less tomentose below the nodes, otherwise glabrous 

 and smooth, 1 to 3-noded, internodes usually enclosed except the uppermost. 

 Sheaths tight, firm, strongly striate, glabrous except on the ciliate margins and 

 tomentose nodes, or sparingly hairy, lowest short and fugaciously hairy like the 

 innovation bud-scales, very firm, persistent, dark brown ; ligules very short, 

 ciliate. B ades linear to linear-lanceolate, often with a gradually narrowed base, 

 tapering to an acute point, 4 to 9 inches (rarely more) by 3 to 1 lines, rather firm, 

 flat or involute, glabrous, smooth or margins scaberulous. 



PANICLE spike-like, cylindric, stout, rather dense, sometimes interrupted, 1 to 

 5 inches, by 3 to 5 lines ; axis angular, finely villous ; branches reduced to sub- 

 sessile clusters of 2 or 3 spikelets or to a single spikelet, each subtended by a 

 fascic'e of 3 or 4, or if solitary, by as many as 8 coarse subflexuous scaberulous 

 bristles, '2^ to 4j lines long with slightly thickened almost smooth and blackish 

 tips ; pedicels stout, very short, tips discoid. 



SPIKELETS turgid, obliquely ovoid, if to 2^ lines long, pale with dark tips, 

 glabrous. 



GLUMES firmly membranous, lower broadly ovate, acute, about half as lon as 

 the spikelet or slightly longer, 5-nerved ; upper oblong, very concave, subapiculate, 

 almost as long as the spikelet of shorter by \ or ^, 7-nerved. Florets, lower male ; 

 valve equalling the upper floret, oblong, subapiculate, 5-nerved ; pale equalling 

 the valve Perfect floret elliptic-oblong, slightly beaked ; valve 5-nerved, very 

 convex, finely honeycombed, yellowish, beak purple or blackish ; anthers I to 1^ 

 line long. 



Habitat: NATAL. Riet Vlei, 4000 feet alt., Buchanan 174 ; near Camper- 

 down,- 2000 feet alt., Wood 4096. 



Drawn from Wood's 4096, and compared with Buchanan's 174. 



fcig. 1, Portion of leaf with ligule ; 2, lower glume; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower vulva; 

 5, pale ; G, stamens and lodicules ; 7, upper valve ; 8, pale ; 9, pistil, stamens, and lodicules. 

 All cnlun/ed. 



