PLATE 471. 



PANICUM ARUECTUM, Hack. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII.. p. 393). 

 Nat. Order Graminea?. 



PERENNIAL, quite glabrous. CULMS ascending from a prostrate rooting base, 1 

 to 2 feet long, compressed below, terete in the upper part, glabrous, many-noded, 

 scantily branched ; sheaths somewhat loose, striate, smooth, the lower withering ; 

 ligule a dense fringe of hairs ; blades linear, acute, 2J to 4 inches, 1J to 2 lines, 

 usually more or less convolute, rigid, green, smooth except the scabrid margins. 

 False spikes 2 to 4, distant on a triquetrous smooth axis up to 3 inches long, secund, 

 2-ranked, 1 to 1J inch long ; rhachis linear, j to J line broad, flat on the back, with 

 a very prominent wavy midrib in front, smooth ; pedicels solitary, very short, stout, 

 tips subdiscoid, with 1-2 spreading hairs. 



SPIKKLETS contiguous, oblong, subacute, 1J to If line long, green or tipped with 

 purple. 



GLUMES, hirer facing the rhachis, thinly membranous, elliptic to rotundate- 

 ovate, obtuse, to f line long, sub- 7 -nerved ; upper membranous, oblong, con- 

 spicuously 7 to 9 -nerved, nerves green, lo wer floret male ; valve like the upper glume, 

 but narrower, 7 -nerved ; pale equal, obtuse, anthers over 1 line long. Perfect floret 

 broadly elliptic, obtuse, 1J to l line long ; valve 7 -nerved, transversely wrinkled. 



Habitat : NATAL. Without precise locality, Gerrard 686. 



The plate copied from a drawing made by Miss Smith at Kew, by kind per- 

 mission of the Director. 



Fie, 1, Part of rhachis and two spikelets ; 2, lower glume ; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower 

 ralve ; 5, pale ; 6, upper yalve ; 7, pale ; 8, pistil and lodicules. All enlarged, 



