PLATE 496. 



LOLIUM MULTIFLORUM, Lain. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 739). 

 Xat. Order Gramineaj. 



ANNUAL. CULMS fascicled, geniculate ascending or erect, l to 3 feet long, 

 glabrous, smooth or slightly rough in the upper part, 4-5-noded, internodes at length 

 more or less exserted, simple or branched below. 



LEAVES glabrous ; sheaths striate, smooth, lower sometimes purplish ; ligule 

 very short, truncate from an auric-led base ; blades linear, long tapering to a very 

 slender point, 4 to 8 inches, by 1 to 2J lines, flat, somewhat rigid, scabrid on the 

 upper side and along the margins ; spikes erect, ,| to I foot long, of numerous (12 

 to 30) spikelets ; axis rather slender, smooth except at the scabrid margins : inter- 

 nodes (except the lowest) distinctly shorter than the spikelets. 



SPIKKLETS strongly compressed from the side, elliptic-oblong, 6 to 8 lines Jong, 

 obliquely erect, 9 to 11 flowered, uppermost floret long exserted from the glume. 



GLUMES, upper narrow, oblong, subobtuse, somewhat rounded on the back, 

 equalling the contiguous floret or nearly so, strongly 7 -nerved. Valves awned or 

 muticous, oblong, 2 to 3 lines long, subherbaceous-chartaceous, light green or tinged 

 with purple above, 5 -nerved, smooth ; awn (when present) straight, very fine. 2 to 

 4 lines long, close to the short hyaline minutely 2-toothed tip ; keels of pales green, 

 crested, scabrid ; anthers 14 to 2 lines long ; grain linear-oblong, semiterete. 1 line 

 long, deeplv channelled in front, adhering to valve and pale. 



Habitat: NATAL. Polela, M. S. Evans, October, 1905 ; Government Herbarium. 

 10,772 ; also without precise locality, mixed with Buchanans No. 50, in Govern- 

 ment Herbarium, No. 10,773. 



Also in Cape Colon}-. A native of Central Europe and the Mediterranean 

 countries. Introduced in Natal and Cape Colony. 



Fig 1, A spikelet; 2, upper glume : 3, valve : 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens and lodicules. 

 All enlarged. 



