480. 



PENNISETUM TYPHOIDEUM, Rich. (Fi. Cap , Vol. VII, p. 432). 

 Nat. Order Graminete. 



ANNUAL. CULMS erect, stout, 1 to several feet high, usually terete and 

 simple, 5- or more noded, hairy to villous below the panicle, otherwise usually 

 glabrous ; sheaths terete, glabrous except the bearded nodes and the often villous 

 junction with the blade, rarely hirsute, usually slightly rough, rather shorter than 

 the internodes ; ligule a narrow long and densely ciliate rim ; blades linear to 

 linear-lanceolate from a rounded base, acute, to 2 feet by to l inch, flat, 

 more or less rough, glabrous, rarely hirsute. 



PANICLE spike-like, cylindric, very dense, 4 to 8 inches by 5 to 9 lines (in the 

 South African specimens) or longer and thicker, often purplish, rhachis stout, 

 villous; branchlets reduced to a peduncled involucrate cluster of 3-1 spikelets; 

 peduncles villous, straight, I to 2^ lines long, often horizontally spreading or partly 

 deflexed ; involucre of very numerous ciliate often purplish bristles about as long 

 as the spikelets. 



SPIKELETS sessile or shortly pedicelled within the involucre, readily deciduous 

 when ripe, oblong, 2 to 2 lines long, pale or purplish upwards. 



GLUMES broadly ovate, obtuse, minute, hyaline, nerveless, ciliate, or larger 

 (the upper to the length of the spikelet), firmer and 3-nerved ; florets similar, 

 subequal, lower male or reduced to a minute empty hyaline valve. Valves broadly 

 oblong, cuspidate or mucronate, 5 to 7-nerved, glabrous, ciliate or pubescent 

 towards the margins or at the tips. Pales broad, oblong, truncate, glabrous, 

 ciliate, or the flaps pubescent below. Lodicules 0. Anthers 1 to \\ line long, tips 

 bearded ; styles connate ; grain ellipsoid to subglobose, equalling the gaping 

 chartaceous very smooth valve and pale. 



Habitat : NATAL. Near Durban, Drege ; and without precise locality, Cooper 

 3338 ; Nels Rust (cultivated), Government Herbarium, 9090. 



Drawn from specimens grown in Botanic Gardens, Durban, Feb., 1907. 



" The 'Pearl Millet.' An annual requiring only about three months to ripen 

 its crop. The stems reach to 6 to 10 feet in height, several being produced from 

 one root, and each again forming lateral branches. Together with Sorghum, this 

 is the principal cereal except rice grown in India by the native races ; it requires 

 a rich soil, and on such will yield a hundred fold It furnishes hay of good quality 

 though not very easily dried, and is also valuable as green fodder. It is Cultivated 

 in the United States of America, and it matures as far north as Christiana, n 

 Norway. Farm stock eat it greedily. One plant of ' Pearl Millet is worth thre< 

 of maize for fodder." Baron F. v. Mueller. 



Fig 1, Spikelets, showing iuvolucre ; 2, lower glume; 3, upper glume : 4 ^ valve ; 

 5, pale f 6. upper valve : 7, same opened ; 8, pale : 9. pistil and stamens. All enlarged. 



