372 GRAMINER (Stapf). [ Paspalum. 
Eastern Region: Natal; coast marshes, Buchanan, 84! and without precise 
peatty, Gerrard, 590! 
The typical ay is fea 9 ei signi the tropics and introduc ed 
into North- narked dwarf variety, is otherwise 
known only ig A ene enth: sree i 
XIII. DIGITARIA, Rich. 
Spikelets lanceolate to elliptic-oblong, flat in front, convex on the 
back, falling entire from the pedicels, usually 2—3-nate and pedicelled 
on the + triquetrous or dilated rhachis of very slender and usually 
sale racemes or false spikes; lower floret barren reduced to the 
a very minute rudimentary pale, upper floret ¢. Glwmes 
Mes dissimilar, the lower usualiy hyaline, minute or sometimes quite 
suppressed, the upper membranous, half as long to as long as the ¢ 
floret, rarely exceeding it or less than half its length, 3-, rarely 1- or 
5-nerved or nerveless.. Valves equal or subequal, lower resembling 
exserted near the tip of the floret. Grain tightly vig Ce by a 
slightly hardened rigid valve and pale, oblong, slightly orsally co 
pressed ; hilum basal, punctiform ; embryo less than 4 a size of the 
in. 
Perennial or annual; blades linear to ee Pizeree td flat, often 
paper dest membranous; racemes sessile, digitate or less distant on 
a com n axis, or ae or rarely peduncled, and sii, slap or — 
ea is tri i 
; $ unequal, 
= rai rom hall as we as to ret than the spikelet ; spikelets closely 
adpressed and imbricate, see A ax bps lax, usually silky, though often 
ae glabrous in con oe e of ‘ge ex tremely fin fine hairs being very tightly 
adpressed and arranged in lines reread the nerves, rarely really glabrous. 
Species over 50, mostly in the warm parts of the Old World; 1 widely spread 
as a oid all over the oe sen the arctic region 
Section 1. ie pas Aaa apf). Racemes dense 
1 
with extremely fin 
spreading silky es oe at haeg upper 
glume usually 5- or 3-nerved; lower valve 7-, 
rarely 5- or 9-nerv. 
Racemes_ solitary, dense ; oe and hae 
densely villous (1) monodactyla. 
uae inet we to many, digitate, “subdigitate’ or more 
on a long common axi 
* Ure me ume and ioe valve more or less silky, 
pit imes paint sae bes abrons 
Racemes very slender, 2— hinats, oft so closely 
conti si de as pe imitate onue: — 
often compound at the base .. (2) argyrograpta. 
