POLYPOUON, DESF. 



SPIKELETS 1 -flowered, in dense spike-like, often lobed, panicles, disarticulating 

 from the pedicels ; rhachilla disarticulating below the valve, not produced, flower 

 hermaphrodite. Glumes 2, subequal, awned from the entire or 2-lobed tips. ' Valve 

 shorter than the glumes, very thin to hyaline, glabrous, truncate, faintly or 

 obscurely 5-nerved, the lateral nerves shortly excurrerit or evanescent within the 

 hyaline tips ; awn very fine, usually deciduous, subterminal, sometime-! reduced to 

 a mucro or 0. Pale 2-keeled, slightly shorter than the valve, rarely much shorter. 

 Lodicules 2, delicate. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous ; styles distinct, very short ; 

 stigmas laterally exserted, loosely plumose. Grain oblong, subterete or slightly 

 grooved, enclosed by the unaltered valve and pale ; hilum short ; embryo small. 



ANNUAL OR SUBPERENNIAL ; blades flat, uppermost sheath often tumid. 

 Spikelets 1 to ' lines long, often hidden by the numerous awns. 



Species about 8 ; 4 in America, 1 in Africa, the others widely dispersed over 

 the warm regions of both hemispheres. 



PLATE 194. 



POLYPOGON MONSPELIENSIS, Desf. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 543). 

 Nat. Order Gramineae. 



ANNUAL, tufted. CULMS erect or geniculately ascending, J to 2 feet long,, 

 simple, glabrous, smooth, 3-4-noded, nodes exserted or enclosed ; sheaths loose, 

 often tumid, glabrous, smooth ; ligules scarious, oblong, denticulate, ciliolate, 

 l-3 lines long ; blades linear, tapering to a callous point, 2-ti inches by 1-3 lines, 

 flaccid to subrigid, flat, scabrid. 



PANICLE spikelike, cylindric, sometimes lobed or interrupted below, 1-5 inches 

 long, light green or straw-coloured ; branches with numerous branchlets from the 

 base, scaberulous ; lateral pedicels extremely short, disarticulating near the base. 



SPIKELETS 1 line long. 



GLUMES subequal, linear or oblanceolate-oblong, shortly -2-lobed or emarginate, 

 scaberulous, ciliate or ciliolate ; awn 2-3 lines long. Valve | line long, minutely 

 2-4-macronulate, nerves very obscure, awn as long as the valve or shorter or 0. 

 Pale 2-toothed or 2-mucronulate, almost as long as the valve. Anthers ^-line 

 long. Grain oblong, \ line long, subterete or terete, obscurely grooved. 



Habitat : NATAL Coope'i 3520. 



Drawn from Cooper's 3520, the only specimen in the Colonial Herbarium. 



Fig 1, Glume; 2, valve ; 3, pale. All en furyeil. 



