PHRAGMITES, TRIN. (Partly). 



SPIKELETS loosely 3 to 10-flowered, awnless, in lar^e panicles ; rhachilla dis- 

 articulating above the first and between the following valves, slender, glabrous, 

 joints very short. Florets, the lowest male or abortive, the following hermaphrodite, 

 the uppermost reduced. Glumes thin, unequal to subequal, lanceolate, acute, more 

 or less rounded on the back, 3-nerved, or the lowest sometimes sub-5-nerved. 

 Valves heteromorphous, the lowest linear-lanceolate, much longer than the sub- 

 tending glume, otherwise of a similar structure, quite glabrous, persistent, the 

 following valves very thin, linear, long and more or less caudate-acuminate, 

 3-nerved, middle nerve percurrent, side nerves fine, short, callus long, slender, with 

 very long silky hairs. Pales linear-oblong, about half as long as the valves, 

 2-keeled. Lodicules 2 (or sometimes 3 in the lowest floret), obovate, 2-3-nerved, 

 glabrous. Stamens 3, or 2 in the lowest floret. Ovary glabrous, in the lowest floret 

 rudimentary or quite suppressed ; styles distinct, rather short ; stigmas laterally ex- 

 serted, densely plumose. Grain loosely enclosed by the valve and pale, free, oblong, 

 semiterete, hilum oblong, short, basal ; embryo about half as long as the grain. 



PERENNIALS with a creeping rhizome, extravaginal innovation shoots, and tall 

 sheathed annual or perennial culms. Blades flat ; ligule a narrow, ciliate, 

 membranous rim. Panicle lax, usually very large and much compound. Spikelets 

 conspicuously silky from the long callus hairs. 



Species 1 (or 2, very closely allied), almost cosmopolitan 



PLATE 193. 



PHRAGMITES COMMUNIS, Trin. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 541). 

 Nat. Order Graminese. 



CULMS erect, 4 to 10 feet long, sometimes much taller or dwarfed, annual, 

 many noded, usually sheathed all along ; sheaths embracing each other, tight, 

 terete, smooth, glabrous, the lowest with reduced blades or bladeless, firm. 



BLADES linear to lanceolate, tapering to a setaceous or subulate point, very 

 variable in length and width (up to 1 J foot long and to l inch broad in the 

 South African specimens), firm, more or less glaucous below, glabrous, smooth or 

 slightly rough towards the base, margins smooth or scabrid. 



PANICLE oblong to ovate-oblong, erect or nodding, more or less secund, dense 

 or rather lax, J to l foot long (in the South African specimens), brownish-purple 

 or brownish-yellow, branched, fascicled or the upper solitary, the longest J to f 

 foot, loosely and repeatedly branched, like the rhachis angular and scabrid, 

 ultimate branchlets more or less terete, filiform ; lateral pedicels usually 1 to 2 

 lines long, the terminal up to 4 lines long. 



SPIKELETS 6 to 8 lines long (in the South African specimens). 



GLUMES, J to 2J lines and 2 to 3J lines long respectively. Valves lower 

 oblong-linear, like the following valves 2 to 6i lines long, callus to f line, hairs to 

 3 lines ; anthers about 1 line long ; grain f line long. 



Habitat : NATAL. Common through the Colony, lim-Imnrin 273 ; near 

 Durban,. Cooper 3354 ; Inanda, Umhlanga valley, Wood 1335. 



Almost cosmopolitan. 



Fig 1, Lower glume : 2, upper glume; 3, lower valve; 4, upper valve; 5, pale; 6, 

 stamens, pistil and lodicules. All cnlunjed. 



