PLATE 129. 



AxDROPOGON DICHROOS (Steud. Syii. PI, Glum. i. 389). 



Eerennial. — Culms rather slender, erect, over 2 feet long, glabrous, terete, 

 4-5-noded and simple below the panicle. Sheaths terete or slightly keeled in the 

 upper part, tight, glabrous, shorter than the internodes, except the sub-persistent 

 lowest ones ; ligules membranous, rotundate-ovate, ciliolate, up to 1 line long. 

 Blades linear from a rounded base, long tapering to a fine point, over ^ foot long, 

 by l^-Sg lines broad, glabrous or scantily hairy at the base, scabrid below and! 

 along the margins, turning reddish. 



Panicle oblong, about 1 foot long, lax. Spathes very narrow, lanceolate, 

 acuminate, lJ-2 inches long, obliquely erect or divaricate, reddish, glabrous or- 

 spreadingly hairy, particularly below. Common peduncles filiform, more or less 

 curved at the upper end, or at length strict, shortly exserted from near the tip of 

 the spathe or shortly exceeding it, with long, spreading tubercle-based hairs below 

 the tip. Racemes 4-10 lines long, at length horizontally spreading, or deflexed, 

 on very short hirsute peduncles, falling together from the tip of the common 

 peduncle ; joints 2-5, filiform, obliquely truncate, 1^ line long, shortly ciliate ; 

 pedicels very similar. Spikelets of the lowest pair of the sub-sessile raceme alike, 

 barren, the sessile of all the other pairs perfect, the pedicelled barren. Perfect 

 spikelets oblong, lanceolate, 2 lines long, pale. Glumes, loiver sub chartaceous 

 above, membranous towards the base, truncate, or minutely 2-toothed, dorsally 

 flattened, scantily pubescent to almost villous, with whitish, or above with reddish 

 hairs, intracarinal nerves 5-7, evanescent V^elow ; keels rigidly ciliate above, callus 

 shortly bearded; upper rigidly membranous, obtuse, 3-nerved, ciliate above. Valves, 

 lotver oblong, truncate, faintly 2-nerved, ciliate ; upper shortly 2-toothed, glabrous. 

 Awn slender, f-1 inch long, kneed and pubescent below the middle. Pale 0. 

 Anthers f-f line long. Pedicelled sjnlcelets linear-lanceolate, up to 2f lines long, 

 rufously hirsute. Glumes, lower acuminate, sometimes mucronate, 9- 11 -nerved; 

 upper 3-nerved, ciliate above. Valves 0, or the lower broadly oblong, up to f line 

 long, ciliate, and the upper reduced to a microscopic ciliate scale. 



Habitat : — Natal. Drege 4357 ; Umpumulo, Buchanan ; Biggarsberg, Reh- 

 mann 7116 ; without precise locality, Buchanan 303. 



Figured from Buchanan's specimen in the Government Hei-barium. 



In the specimen in the Herbarium the panicle is more than 1 foot long. 



Fig. 1, Culm, leaf and panicle about natural size. Sessile spihelet—2, lower glume; 

 3, upper glume ; 4, lower valve ; 5, pistil, stamens and lodicules ; 6, upper valve. Pedicelled- 

 spikelets — 7, lower glume'j 8, upper glume. Except Jig, 1, all oilarged. 



