PLATE 135. 



Paspalum distichum Linn. (Amoen. Acad. v. 391). 



Perennial. — Culms ascending from a creeping, rooting, often very long and 

 branched base, many-noded, sheathed throughout. Leaves numerous, distichous, 

 imbricate below. Sheaths 'thin, pale, glabrous except the often bearded mouth, 

 the lower at length loose ; ligules very short, truncate, with fine hairs from behind ; 

 blades linear, acute, 2-4 inches long, by 1-1^ line wide, spreading, involute, rarely 

 flat, glabrous. False spikes 2-nate, both pedunculated and articulated on the top 

 of the culm, rarely 3-nate, often spreading. Ehachis herbaceous, i line broad, 

 margins scabrid. 



Spikelets subsessile, falling entire from the shcirt pedicels, solitary, oblong, 

 acute to acuminate, 1-2 lines long, dorsally flattened, imbricate and adpressed to 

 the rhachis, glabrous, pale. Glumes, knee)- ; vj)/>('r slightly convex, 5 or 4 

 nerved (middle nerve suppressed) side nerves close, sub-marginal. Valves, loirer 

 very like the glume, middle nerve always percurrent, side nerves 2-3 on each side, 

 submarginal ; nj^rper distinctly shorter, subcoriaceous, 5-nerved, smooth, pale. 

 Pale obscurely auricled. Stamens 3 ; anthers f line long. Styles and stigmas as 

 in P. scrohicvlatuni. Grain ^ line long. 



ESLbitat : — Natal. Coast marshes, Buchanan 84 ; without precise locality, 

 Gerrard 590 ; Clairmont, 50 feet alt., March, Wood 6043. 



Drawn from Wood's specimen which was certified by Professor Hackel, and is 

 the only authentic specimen in the Government Herbarium. 



Found in most warm countries. Baron Mueller says of this grass : " The Silt 

 grass," a creeping bank or swamp grass forming extensive cushions. It keeps 

 beautifully green throughout the year, affords a sufiiciently tender blade for feed, 

 and is exquisitely adapted to cover silt or bare slopes on banks of ponds or rivers, 

 where it grows grandly ; moderate submersion does not destroy it, but frost injures 

 it : it thrives well also on salt marshes. Excellent for fern tree tubs to produce a 

 green sward and some overdrooping foliage. The chemical analysis made in spring 

 gave the following results : Albumen 2-20 ; gluten 771 ; starch 1 "56 ; gum 1-64; 

 sugar 5-00." 



Fig. 1, Irigule ; 2, rhachis with one spikelet ; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower valve ; 5, upper 

 valve ; 6, pale ; 7, stamens, pistil and lodicules. Except Jiff. ], all enlarged. 



