PLATE 174. 



SETARIA VERTICILLATA, Beauv. (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII., p. 429). 

 Nat. Order Graminese. 



ANNUAL. CULMS erect or ascending from a geniculate base, J to 5 feet long, 

 usually compressed below, more or less branched, glabrous, smooth, or scabrid below 

 the panicle, 4 to 9-noded, internodes mostly at length exserted; sheaths thin, 

 rather lax, usually compressed, striate, glabrous, or finely hairy upwards ; ligules 

 short, truncate, densely ciliate ; blades linear or lanceolate-linear from a broad and 

 rounded, or from a narrow base, long tapering to an acute or sxibsetaceous point, 2 

 to 12 inches, by 2 to 6 (rarely up to 12) lines wide, thin, flat, flaccid, scaberulous, 

 usually finely and scantily hairy. 



PANICLE erect or curved, spike like, cylindric or oblong, dense or rather lax, 

 1 to 5 inches long, coarsely bristly ; axis scabrid and often pubescent ; branches 

 spirally arranged, close, in robust specimens, the lower up to 4 lines long, with a 

 distinct scabrid angular rhachis and 2-nate spikelets, otherwise very short or 

 reduced to sessile clusters, each spikelet subtended by a coarse reversely scabrid 

 bristle 2 to 7 lines long. 



SPIKELETS ellipsoid, obtuse, about 1 line long, light green, glabrous, lower 

 glume hyaline, broad, ovate, acute, 1 to sub-3-nerved, \ to \ as long as the spikelet, 

 >/l>/n'r membranous, elliptic, concave, 5 to 7-nerved, equal to the spikelet or almost 

 so; lower floret barren ; valve similar to the upper glume, dorsally flattened, 5 to 

 7-nerved ; pale hyaline, more or less arrested or 0. Perfect floret elliptic-oblong, 

 plano-convex, subapiculate or obtuse, almost 1 line long, greenish or straw- 

 coloured ; valve subcoriaceous, very obscurely wrinkled, 5-nerved. Anthers f line 

 long ; grain broadly ellipsoid, over \ line long, white, subtranslucent. 



Habitat: NATAL. Durban Plat, Buchanan ; near Durban, Williamson 14 ; 

 Umpumulo and near the Coast, Buchanan 165 ; and without precise locality, 

 Gerrard 682 ; Zululand, Jenkinson 4 ; Berea, March, Wood 5946. 



Fig 1, Brunch with spikeiets ; 2, lower glume; 3, upper glume; 4, upper valve; .% 

 pale ; 6, pistil, stamens arid lodicules. All enlarged, 



