PLATE 414. 



ERAGROSTIS CHLOROMELAS, Steud. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 602). 

 Nat. Order GramineaB. 



PERENNIAL, very densely tufted with closely packed innovation shoots. 



CULMS erect or geniculate, slender, simple, very rarely branched above the 

 base, i to 1|- foot long, sub-compressed, glabrous, or very rarely scantily hairy, 

 smooth, usually 2-noded, internodes exserted, uppermost very long ; lower sheaths 

 crowded, very short, firm, adpressedly hairy to tomentose at the very base or quite 

 glabrous, persistent, upper tight, glabrous or with few fine scattered hairs, long- 

 bearded at the mouth ; ligule a fringe of short hairs. Blades very narrow, filiform- 

 convolute, capillary above, flexuous, 3 to 6 inches long, rarely longer, to 1 line 

 broad when expanded, somewhat rigid, glaucous, glabrous or scantily hairy, 

 scaberulous or scabrid on the upper face and all over towards the tips, otherwise 

 smooth. 



PANICLE open, ovoid or pyramidal, lax, 2 to 8 inches long, erect, rather rigid ; 

 axis filiform, smooth ; lower branches in whorls of 5-3, or 2-nate, rarely all solitary, 

 spreading, finely filiform, straight or subflexuous, glabrous or sometimes with a few 

 fine hairs at the axils, longest J \ to 4 inches long, undivided for \ to 1 inch from 

 the base, then very loosely and at length divaricately branched, smooth or the 

 ultimate divisions scaberulous ; pedicels capillary, the lateral 1 to 3 lines long. 



SPIKELETS scattered, linear, acute, 2 to 4 lines by J to f line, loosely 5 to 

 13-flowered, dark olive-grey to slate-grey ; rhachilla subpersistent, then disarticu- 

 lating, very slender, flexuous, smooth, or almost so, joints up to (| line long. 



GLUMES unequal, deciduous, lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong in profile, thinly 

 acute or subacute, membranous or hyaline, 1 -nerved, scaberulous on the nerve ; 

 lower J to f line, upper f to 1 line long. Valves obliquely oblong in profile, 

 subacute to acute, f to f line long, membranous, smooth, side-nerves fine ; pales 

 equal to the valves, obtuse, keels fine, smooth or nearly so. Anthers about line 

 long ; grain oblong-ellipsoid, obtusely quadrangular, J line long, brown ; embryo 

 large. 



R&bitdit: NATAL. Near Ladysmith, lielimann 7130, 7134; Umhlanga, 

 Wood 6058 ; near Van Reenen's Pass, 5000 to 6000 feet alt., Wood 7221. 



Drawn from Wood's 7221, Van Reenen, 14-12-1898. 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glurne ; 3, valve ; 4, pa'le ; 5, pistil, stamens anil lodicules. 

 All enlarged. 



