THREE NEW AFRICAN GRASSES. 359 
infra medium geniculata, columna hirtula; spic. pedic., gl. I™* dense 
fulve-villosa, IL rufescente, convoluta, lance olata. 
rennial grass, With apparently a thin creeping rhizome. 
by stiff eerie sheaths. These lower leaves have a soft woolly 
covering, where as on the culm the blades are almost glabrous and 
the sheaths ehtivaly so, except for a minute pubescence below the 
pilose orifice. The culm is 11-12 in. long; the leaf-blades at its 
base and those of the innovations from the older sheaths are linear, 
gon gradually to a sharp tip, and 8-6 in. long by }-1 line broad ; 
as ascend the culm they get shorter and more tapering ; they 
are ‘flat, or : piusetiend se towards the upper surface; the whitish 
midrib is conspicuous; there are also several lateral nerves. 
i he ver 
ong, its few slender branches are 6-8 in., and terminate 
in a bolitaey peduncle which generally protrudes, sometimes an inch 
or more, from the reddish narrowly lanceolate spathe whose length 
varies from 13-21 in. The peduncle is covered for about 4 in. 
at its apex with long soft spreading fulvous hairs springing from 
tubercles. The spikelets, especially the male, the pedicels, and 
joints of the rachis also bear short thick fulvous hairs. The stalke 
spikelets are unawned; the aesbdile have a flexuous obtusely genicu- 
late awn 10-11 lines lon 
Buchanan, N yassaland, 1891, No, 1428 
This species belongs to the hirtus group, and comes nearest to 
Abyssinian A. fulvicomus Hochstett. ; it is, however, a smaller 
and less robust plant, differing in wes shorter, much narrower and 
pubescent leaves, with a lig line long, the latter being 
1} lines in the Abyssinia leo in its very lax simple panicle 
with but few nches, and its slightly larger reddish male spike- 
lets. Hackel, in hi aph of Andropogonea, reduce 
A, fulvicomus to a va of A. rufus Kth., but Buchanan’s plant 
is distinguished from the latter not only by the long tubercular 
on the racemes and spikelets, characters which it 
fulvicomus, but in addition by the very distinct leaf- atuasacters, the 
short narrow linear blades, and their woolly covering. 
sp.n. Planta 1-2- pedalis, 
mox rami re a ramis paucis, longis, culmo similibus ; 
glabris, ore _pilosi li ula membranacea, glabra, semicirculari ; 
nute p 
inferiore 3, aperiies "s: rhacheos articulis triangularibus, angulis 
albo-villosis; pedicellis dorso rotundatis gla ris, angulis 1 
albo- villosis ; spic. sess. ba Im= chartacea, ovata, breviter bifida 
8-nervia, dorso plana, supra medium bicarinata et pilosa, infra 
glabra, callo truncato; II‘ supra carinata, apice acuta, 5-nervia; 
