PLATE 124. 



Andropogon ScHtENANTHUS (Liun. Sp. Plant. 1046), var. versicolor (Hack. 

 Andr. in DC. Monogr. Phan. vi. 610). 



Perennial, frequently with extravaginal innovation shoots, besides some 

 intravaginal ones, or annual (or at least flowering the first year). 



Culms fascicled, erect or shortly ascending, stout or rather so, 2-4 feet long, 

 simple and 4-7-noded below the spurious panicle. Sheaths tight, quite glabrous, 

 subherbaceous. or the lowermost firmer, and sometimes subpersistent, 2-3 inches 

 long ; upper shorter than the internodes ; ligules very short, rounded. Blades 

 linear to linear-lanceolate from a broader rounded oi- subcordate base, tapering to 

 a long setaceous point, |^-1 foot long, by 3-6 lines wide (in the South African 

 specimens), flat, rather flaccid, dull green or sub-glaucous, glabrous, smooth or the 

 margins scabrid. 



Panicles more or less compound, narrow, often interriipted, 4-6 inches long, 

 rarely longer. Racemes 4-9 lines long, 2-nate, at length reflexed or horizontally 

 spreading, on slender peduncles which are 2-4 inches long, and subtended by 

 lanceolate boat-shaped, many-nerved scarious reddish spathes, ^-1 inch long ; joints 

 and pedicels linear, slender, or the lowest somewhat stout, l-l|- line long, densely 

 hairy, mainly along the margins, tips minutely cupiilar, toothed. Spikelets of the 

 lowest pair of the sessile raceme alike, male, the sessile of all the other pairs 

 perfect, the pedicelled male. Perfect ^(pikelets lanceolate, 2-2^- lines long, often 

 variegated. Glumes, loiver^ subacute or obscurely 2-toothed, dorsally flattened, 

 with a narrow groove from the middle downward, corresponding to a keel on the 

 inner side, keels narrowly or obscurely winged and scabrid above, evanescent below ; 

 upper lanceolate, acute, l-sub-3-nerved. Valves hyaline, loiver oblong. If line 

 long, 2-nerved, ciliate ; up)per scarcely shorter, very narrow, linear, deeply bifid, 

 lobes very fine. Awn 5-7 lines long, slender, bent just below the middle, glabrous 

 below the bend. Pale 0. Anthers 1 line long. FediceUed spikelets oblong sub- 

 acute, 2 lines long. Glumes, lower 9-11-nerved; vpper 3-nerved. Valves lower 

 oblong, almost equalling the glumes, 2-nerved ; iippcr and pale 0. Anthers 

 IJ line long. 



Habitat : Natal. Drakensberg Range, Krwiss 26 ; Umpumiilo, BnvJiwtan 

 231 ; near Durban, May, Wood, 6046 ; near Durban, February, Wood 7577. 



Figured from Wood's 7577. 



Fig. 1, Plant about natural size ; 2, s])atlK' witli 2-nate racemes ; .'?, lower pair of spikolets 

 of sessile racenme. Sessile npikelet — 4, lower ghime, back ^■iew ; 5, upper ghinio : 6, lower 

 valve ; 7, upper valve ; 8, stamens, stigmas, and lodicules. Pedicelled spihelet — 9, lower glume ; 

 10, upper glume ; 11, lower valve. Except fig. 1, all enlarged. 



