PLATE 417. 



ERAGROSTIS CHAPELIERI, Nees. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 614). 

 Nat. Order Gramineae. 



PERENNIAL, tufted. CULMS erect or suberect, simple, somewhat stout, 2 to 3 

 feet high, glabrous, 3-4-noded, intermediate and upper internodes exserted, upper- 

 most very long ; sheaths glabrous except at the more or less bearded mouth, or the 

 lower scantily hairy, striate, lower very firm, persistent ; ligule a narrow long 

 hairy rim ; blades very narrow, linear, tapering to fine point, usually involute or 

 convolute, 3 to 10 inches long, 1 line broad at the base when expanded, rigid, 

 closely striate, more or less hairy towards the base on the upper side, glabrous and 

 smooth underneath. 



PANICLE erect, contracted, very narrow, 3 to \j inches long; axis slender, 

 striate ; branches erect, more or less adpressed to the axis, lowest solitary, 2 to 5 

 inches long, undivided for some distance, then (like the upper part of the axis) 

 bearing fascicles of shortly pedicelled or subsessile spikelets on short branchlets 

 crowded towards the tips, or all branches very short, and then the panicle 

 resembling an interrupted false spike ; ultimate divisions and pedicels scabrid. 



SPIKELETS linear, much compressed, 3 to 8 lines by 1^ to lj line, reddish- 

 brown, 7 to 20-flowered ; rhachilla persistent, glabrous, smooth, joints very short. 



GLUMES equal or more or less unequal, deciduous, lanceolate, about 1 line 

 long, 1 nerved or upper sub-3-nerved, membranous, keels scaberulous above. 

 Valves broad, obliquely ovate in profile, shortly subacuminate or acute, 1 line long 

 or very slightly longer, rather firm, deciduous from the base upwards, keels 

 scaberulous above, side-nerves strong. Pales slightly shorter than the valves, 

 persistent, keels stout and rigidly ciliolate. Stamens 2, anthers about 5 to J line. 

 Grain short ellipsoid, laterally compressed, to ^ line long, whitish, subtranslucent. 



Habitat : NATAL. Umpumulo, 2000 feet alt., Buchanan 254a ; near Durban, 

 \VilIiiunxnn, 58; valley of the Umlazi River, Dreye ; without precise locality. 

 Plant 59 ; Gerrard 481. 



Also in tropical Africa, Delagoa Bay, and the Mascarene Islands. 



" When the spikelets are very crowded the lower florets are often more or less 

 reduced and barren." 



Drawn from Buchanan's 25 4a. 



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

 All enlarged. 



