PLATE 186. 



TRICHOPTERYX DREGEANA, Nees. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII, p. 451). 

 Nat. Order Graminese. 



CULMS ascending or erect from a slender creeping rhizome, branched below 

 1 to 2 feet high, very slender, glabrous, many-noded, internodes exserted. 



LEAVES equally distributed over the culms ; sheaths tight, glabrous ; blades 

 narrowly linear, tapering to an acute point, usually involute, somewhat subulate, 

 reflexed, f to 1^ line long, glabrous, margins cartilaginous. 



PANICLE narrow, 1 to 3 inches long, flaccid or erect and flexuous, contracted 

 or open ; rhachis filiform ; branches 2-3-nate, capillary, almost smooth, branched 

 from below the middle, up to 1 inch long, tips of pedicels with long fine hairs. 



SPIKELETS light brown, 2 to 3 lines long. 



GLUMES, loiver ovate, subacute or obtuse, 1| to 1^ line long, glabrous, thin, 

 upper lanceolate acuminate, acute, 2 to 2 lines long. Florets, lower male ; valve 

 like the upper glume, slightly longer ; pale linear-oblong l line long. Stamens 

 2, anthers | line long. Perfect floret ; valve oblong 1 line long, deeply bifid, lobes 

 produced into fine bristles l line long, glabrous except a long beard on each side 

 at the middle, sub-7-nerved ; callus minute, obtuse, minutely bearded ; awn very 

 fine, 3 lines long, column very short ; pale l line long ; stamens 2. 



Habitat : NATAL Common on wet banks, Buchanan 291 ; between Umtentu 

 and Umzimkulu Rivers, 500 feet alt., Drege ; Zululand, in a swamp at Entumeni, 

 Wood 3995. 



Also in Transvaal and Shire Highlands. 



In the description in the Flora Capensis the leaves are said to be | to l line 

 long, this is evidently a printer's error, it should be | to l line wide. 



Fij? ], Lower gjlume ; 2, lower valve; 3, pale; 4, stamens; 5, upper valve; 6, pale ; 

 7, ovary, style, stamens and lodictiles. All enlurt/ed. 



TRISTACHYA, NEES. 



SPIKELETS 5 lines to 2 inches long, lanceolate to linear, sessile or shortly 

 pedicelled, in clusters of 3 at the tips of the branches of a raceme or panicle ; 

 rhachilla disarticulating between the valves and less readily or imperfectly below 

 them, glabrous, not produced beyond the upper floret. Florets 2, heteromorphous, 

 lower male, upper perfect. Glumes persistent, membranous or subcoriaceous, more 

 or less unequal, 3-nerved, glabrous or bristly from black glands. Lower valve 

 membranous, 3-nerved, or 5-9-nerved with some of the nerves much shorter than 

 the others ; upper valve convolute, membranous or ultimately cartilaginous, bifid, 

 7 (rarely 5-) nerved, awned from between the lobes ; awn kneed, twisted below. 

 Pales membranous, hyaline, 2-keeled. Lodicules 2, cuneate, very fleshy. Stamens 

 3. Ovary obovoid to oblong, glabrous or the top, hairy, rudimentary in the male 

 floret ; stigmas plumose, long, laterally exserted. Grain obovoid to linear-oblong, 

 grooved, tightly embraced by the valve and pale, free ; hilum linear, long ; embryo 

 large ; albumen very hard. 



PERENNIAL, general ly coarse grasses, growing mostly in compact tufts. Leaves 

 rigid ; ligule a line of hairs ; triplets of spikelets large and few in racemes, or 

 smaller and more numerous in scantily branched panicles, sometimes deciduous from 

 the jointed peduncles 



Species 11-12, in Africa, Arabia, and Beluchistan, and in tropical America. 



