PLATE 138. 



DiGITARIA TERNATA (Stapf, Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. 376). 



Annual. — Culms fascicled, erect from a geniculate base, slender, simple, 

 ^-2 feet long, glabrous or more or less beset with fine long spreading hairs below 

 the racemes ; about 2-noded. Sheaths glabrous or scantily fimbriate at the mouth. 

 Ligules short, truncate. Blades linear-lanceolate to linear, acute, 2-9 inches by 

 3 lines, flat, flaccid, glabrous or sparingly hairy near the base. 



Racemes 2-7, subdigitate, erect or spreading, very slender, strict, 2-12 inches 

 long. Rhachis very narrow, linear, up to j line broad, margins scabrid, internodes 

 about l^- line long. Pedicels 2-3-nate, unequal, up to more than 1 line long, 

 shortly hairy towards the scarcely thickened tips. 



Spikelets adpressed to the rhachis, oblong-elliptic, obtuse or sub-obtuse, 

 about 1 line long, pale. Glumes, lower 0; upper very delicate, narrower and 

 shorter than the upper valve, 3-nerved, sides densely villous with clavate hairs. 

 Valves subequal ; lower prominently 5-nerved, very densely and appressedly 

 silky villous with clavate hairs ; upper chartaceous, ovate-oblong, subacute, dark 

 brown to black except the whitish hyaline margins. Anthers |- line long. 



E&bit&t : — Natal. Near Umpuraulo, 2000 to 2500 feet, Buchanan 203; 205; 

 and without precise locality 17 ; Dundee, Green 83. 



Also in Abyssinia and India. 



Drawn from Green's specimen and compared with Buchanan's 203 and 205. 



Though this species is said to have no lower glume, a microscopic rudiment of 

 it may often be seen at the base of the upper one. 



In the Flora of British India this plant is described as Paspalwm ternatum, 

 Hk. £, and it is said by Schimper to be a pest in cultivated fields. 



Fig. 1, Ligule ; 2, rhachis with spikelets ; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower valve, back view ; 

 5, same, front view ; 6, upper valve ; 7, ^ale ; 8, ovary, style, stigmas, stamens and lodieules. 

 All enlarged. 



