PLATE 148. 



Panioum serratum (Spreug. Syst. 1, 309). (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII. p. .388). 



Perennial. — Rhizome short, thick, tomentose, with equally tomentose 

 innovation buds. 



Culms erect or geniculately ascending, simple or often much branched above 

 the base, slender, lJ-2 feet long, terete, pubescent above. 



Leaves often crowded, dichotomously imbricate towards the base ; sheaths 

 tight, terete, the lowest tomentose, sometimes glabrescent, the following gradually 

 less hairy glabrescent or glabrous, except the pubescent or villous margins and 

 nodes ; ligule a fringe of short rigid haiis ; blades linear to linear-lanceolate with 

 a callous point, 1-4 inches long, by li-2^ lines wide, rigid, flat or involute, 

 glabrous or haii'y, particularly near the base, margins cartilaginous, wavy, 

 spinulous. 



False spikes 4-10, secund on a filiform, angular, glabrous or puberulous 

 common axis, erect or spreading, usually longer than the internodes, gradually 

 decreasing upwards, dense, 12-3 lines long, rhachis filiform, angular, very wavy, 

 rigidly pubescent to sub-hirsute ; pedicels solitary or the low^est 2-nate, filiform 

 with discoid tips, curved, the lower very short, the upper up to 1 line long, 

 hairy. 



Spikelets usually 2-ranked, contiguous or subcontiguous, obovoid-ellipsoid, 

 obtuse, turgid, l^-lj line long, pallid, overtopped by a purplish tuft of silky hairs. 

 Glumes, loiver facing the rliachis, subhyaline, broadly ovate to rotundate-ovate, 

 obtuse, f-1 line long, often purplish, 3-nerved, hairy ; dipper membranous, broadly 

 elliptic, acute or subcuspidate, 1:^-1|- line long, very concave, faintly 5-nerved, 

 minutely villous or glabrescent in the centre, with a transverse fringe of purplish 

 hairs below the glabrous tip. Loiver foret male, valve equal and similar to the 

 uppQr glume, but more distinctly cuspidate, hyaline and glabrous along the middle 

 nerve, transverse fringe broken up into 2 broad tufts ; pale broad, almost equalling 

 the valve ; anthers over 1 line long. Perfect floret elliptic, cuspidate or 

 mucronulate, 1-1;|- line long, valve elliptic, coriaceous, pallid, glabrous or ciliate near 

 the tip, finely pitted. 



ESbbitSit : — Natal. — Umpumulo 2,400 feet alt., Buchanan 213 ; Umsingaand 

 base of Biggarsberg, Buchanan, 105; Riet Vlei 4-5000 feet alt., Buchanan 214,. 



Fig. 1, Lowest glume ; 2, upper glume. Male floret. — 3, lower valve ; 4, pale ; 5, 

 stamens and lodicules. Perfect floret. — 6, upper valve, front view; 7, same, back view; 

 ■8, pale ; 9, stamens, style, ovary, stigma and lodicules ; 10, ligule. All enlarged. 



