91 



2. Sorghum plumosum, Beauv. 



Botanical Name. Plumosum Latin, full of feathers, in allusion to 

 the fruiting spikelets, which, are villous. 

 Where figured. Agricultural Gazette. 



Botanical description (B. FL, vii, 540). A tall grass, closely resem- 

 bling S. halepense, but with the nodes bearded with a dense tuft of 

 hairs, and the leaves much narrower. Inflorescence and structure of 

 the spikelets the same, but the smaller branches, pedicels, and spike- 

 lets more or less villous, with hairs usually rufous, besides the dense 

 tuft at the base of the sessile spikelets. 



Spikelets varying from 2J to 4 lines long, lanceolate as in S. halepense, but less 



flattened, and usually narrower. 



Outer glume at first several-nerved, at length rigid, shining, and apparently nerve- 

 less, except two ciliate nerves near the top, often turning almost black when 

 ripe. 

 Aivn often short and capillary, but usually longer and stouter than in S. halepense, 



though never so long as in S. intra/is. 

 Ovary glabrous. 



Value as a fodder. This is a coarse grass, not liked by sheep- 

 farmers, but on a cattle-run it is a very good grass. (Bailey.) 



Habitat and range. Found in all the Colonies, except South Aus- 

 tralia and Tasmania. In our Colony it occurs from the Coast district 

 to the tableland. 



33. ANTHISTIRIA. 



Spikelets one-flowered or empty, seven (rarely six) in a spike or 

 cluster, four male or barren, either sessile or pedicellate in a whorl at 

 the base of the hairy rhachis, two, or sometimes one, pedicellate and 

 male or barren on the top of the rhachis, with an intermediate sessile 

 fertile one. 



Glumes in the barren spikelets usually two, the outer one several- 

 nerved, the inner thin and hyaline, in the male spikelets usually a 

 third smaller hyaline one ; in the fertile spikelet glumes four, the two 

 outer ones nearly equal, usually rigid and coriaceous, the outer one 

 obscurely five- or seven-nerved, the second with two prominent nerves, 

 the central one very faint, third glume much smaller, very thin and 

 hyaline ; fourth very narrow and thin at the base, thickened into a 

 long twisted awn, usually bent above the middle. 



Palea very small and hyaline, sometimes scarcely conspicuous. 

 Styles distinct. 



Grain free, enclosed in the hardened outer glumes. Erect leafy 

 branching grasses, the spikes or clusters singly pedunculate within 

 sheathing bracts, or sessile in the bracts and collected many together 

 in compound clusters, forming short almost cyme-like leafy panicles. 

 The four-whorled barren spikelets sessile. Awn very long and rigid. 

 Spikelets in dense compound clusters, sessile within the bracts. 

 Bracts glabrous. Barren spikelets glabrous or sprinkled with 

 long cilia. Fertile spikelet glabrous or shortly pubescent at 

 the end .^ ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1. A. ciliata. 



Spikelets with the surrounding barren ones on slender pedicels 

 within the sheathing bracts. Barren spikelets glabrous. Fertile 

 one densely villous with brown hairs .., ... ... ... 3. A. avenacea. 



The four whorled barren spikelets pedicellate, all the spikelets glabrous. 



Awns very fine ... ... ... ... ... ... 4. A. membranacea 



