PLATE 200. 



ARISTIDA SCIURUS, Stapf. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 557). 

 Nat. Order Graminese. 



CULMS rather stout, over 3 feet long with a fugacious snow-white adpressed 

 woolly indumentum below the nodes ; sheaths long, tight, glabrous except for some 

 wool near the mouth, striate, ligule a flake of fine wool ; blades linear, acute, 

 involute or setaceously convolute above, over 1 foot long, 2 lines broad near the 

 base, smooth below, asperulous above. 



PANICLE contracted, dense, 1 to 1 \ foot by 1 to lg inch, erect ; rhachis rather 

 stout, smooth ; branches fascicled, the lowest up to J foot long, erect, remotely and 

 repeatedly branched ; branchlets filiform to capillary, scaberulous ; lateral pedicels 

 short. 



SPIKELETS 2-3 at the tips of the branchlets, yellowish, 5 to 6 lines long, very 

 slender 



GLUMES very unequal, rather thin, minutely truncate or 2-toothed (when 

 expanded), the lower lanceolate-oblong, acute, 2J lines long, the upper linear-oblong, 

 5 to 6 lines long ; valve linear, 4 to 5 lines long, obscurely beaked, beak straight ; 

 callus very short ; awns continuous with the valve, fine, scaberulous, 7 to 8 lines 

 long ; pale f line long ; lodicules few-nerved, f line long ; anthers 3 lines long, 

 cells minutely apiculate. 



Habitat : NATAL. Without precise locality, Gerrard 471, 161. 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; 3, valve : 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens and 

 lodicules. All enlarged. 



