PLATE 425. 



ERAGROSTIS GUMMIFLUA, Nees. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 029). 

 Nat. Order Gramineaj. 



PERENNIAL, compactly cpespitose. CULMS firm, erect, slender or somewhat 

 stotit, 1 to 2 feet long, glabrous, smooth, usually very viscous below the nodes, 3 

 to 5-noded, internodes exserted ; sheaths tight, striate, glabrous except at the 

 bearded mouth, more or less viscous, lowest persistent ; ligule a dense fringe of 

 minute hairs; blades narrow, linear, tapering to a setaceous point, usually filiform- 

 convolute, 4 to 10 inches long, I to 2 lines wide at the base when expanded, rigid, 

 glabrous, smooth on the back, densely scabrid along the projecting nerves on the 

 upper side. 



PANICLE linear or narrow-oblong, erect, 6 to 10 inches long ; rhachis angular, 

 smooth ; branches solitary or irregularly approximate and subverticillate, erect or 

 obliquely erect, short or the lower up to 3 inches long, angular, smooth, divided 

 from the base ; branchlets mostly very short, subsecund, with the spikelets in dense 

 clusters ; pedicels very short. 



SPIKELETS oblong, obtuse, up to 2 lines long, purplish or light brown, rigid, 

 loosely 5 to y -flowered ; rhachilla disarticulating. 



GLUMES subequal, oblong-lanceolate, acute, about J line long, strongly keeled, 

 keel scaberulous ; valves oblong in profile, obtuse, f line long, rigidly membranous, 

 side nerves very prominent, keel scaberulous above. Pales subequal to the valves, 

 and falling with them, keels scabrid above. Stamens 3; anthers line long; 

 grain oblong-ellipsoid, I to line long, brown, smooth. 



Habitat: NATAL. Without precise locality, Geirard G80 ; near Dundee, 

 4000 feet alt,, W. E. Green 95, 96 ( Wood 7451).' 



Drawn from Green's specimens, the only Natal one in the Herbarium. 



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

 All enlarged. 



