PLATE 497. 



AGROSTIS SUAVIS, Stapf. (Kew Bulletin, 1908, ined). 

 Nat. Order Graminerc. 



PERENNIAL, laxly cajspitose, innovation shoots extravaginal, suddenly ascending 

 or stoloniferous. 



CULMS erect about 2 feet long to base of panicle, 3 to 5-noded, glabrous, simple, 

 internodes exserted, produced before flowering to 3 to 5 inches beyond the 

 mouth of the sheath. Sheaths very lax above, glabrous, smooth, the lowest purple, 

 ligules hyaline, oblong, 2| lines long ; blades narrow-linear, shortly acute, plaited in 

 dried specimens, up to 6 inches long (upper ones 14 to 18 lines long), spreading to 1 

 line wide, very green, glabrous, scaberulous towards the apex, very narrowly sulcate 

 on the face to near the middh between the primary nerves, primary nerves" on each 

 side usually 4. 



PANICLE divaricate, lax, obovate or oblong, more than 1 1 inches long, 6 to 8 

 inches wide, lower branches semiverticillate, 4-5-nate, upper 2-nate, mostly undivided 

 for 10 to 14 lines (some for ~1\ inches) then twice or three times or four times divided 

 into branchlets, the longer 4| inches long, filiform, smooth below, scaberulous above, 

 pedicels capillary, terminal up to 9 lines long, lateral ones \\ line long. 



SPIKELETS 2 to 2 lines long, straw often suffused with purple. Rhachilla 

 reduced to a fascicle of hairs scarcelv line long. 



GLUMES equal, lanceolate, acute, 1 -nerved, scarious. Valves seen from the side 

 narrowly lanceolate, ovate lanceolate when expanded, l line long, shortly bifid, 

 5-nerved, lateral nerves excurrent in mucros, laxly clothed with fine hairs on the back, 

 awn setiform, straight, inserted a little below the middle ; pales hyaline, 2-nerved, 

 truncate, a little shorter than the valves, glabrous. Anthers not seen, grain linear- 

 oblong. | line long. 



Habitat : NATAL. Van Reenen, 5500 feet alt., January, Wood 8913. 



Dr. Stapf says of this grass : " Closely related to A. eriantha, Hack., but dis- 

 tinguished by the divaricate effuse panicle, distant from the top of the leaf, with 

 4-5-nate semiverticillate branches." He also says : " This differs from A. eriantha, 

 Hack., a native of the Transvaal, solely in the form of the panicle. Mature specimens 

 of A. eriantha. communicated by Messrs. Sutton, have the same narrow contracted 

 panicle as Schlechter's younger ' flow ering type samples, and the branches of their 

 panicles are throughout'geminate. On the other hand, all of Wood's specimens at 

 Kew (4 sheets) exhibit the form described above." 



Fig 1, Floret ; 2, glume ; 3, valve, inner view; 4, same in profile ; 5, pale; 6, pistil and 

 lodicules. A/I enlarged. 



