PLATE 153. 



Panicum laticomum, Nees. (F1. Cap. Vol. 7, page 401). 



Nat. Order GramineEe. 



Perennial. — Culms ascending, divided above the base into somewhat spread- 

 ing, long, leafy flowering branches, slender, 1 J to 2 feet long, minutely hairy or 

 glabrous, many-noded, internodes exserted ; sheaths tight, thin, striate, hairy, 

 often with tubercle-based hairs or glabrescent except at the nodes and near the 

 junction with the blade ; ligule a minutely ciliolate rim. Blades spreading, 

 lanceolate from a rounded base, acutely acuminate, 1 J by 3 inches, by j to |- inch, 

 flat, very thin, sparingly and finely hairy, margins scabrid. 



Panicle erect, very lax, delicately and divaricately branched, about ^ foot 

 long ; axis filiform, terete and smooth below, angular and finely scabrid above ; 

 branches in fascicles of 4-2 or solitary, unequal, at length spreading, finely 

 filiform to capillary, very laxly divided, often from 1 to 2 inches above the base ; 

 branchlets and pedicels extremely fine, scaberulous, lateral pedicels 1 to 4 lines 

 long, tips scarcely thickened. 



Spikelets oblong, acute at both ends, slightly more than 1 line long, glabrous, 

 green. Glumes, very thinly herbaceous ; loiver broadly ovate, subobtuse, ^ line 

 long, 3-nerved ; upper one somewhat remote from the lower, oblong, acute, almost 

 1 line long, 5 -nerved, middle nerve scaberulous above. Florets, loiver barren ; 

 valve like the upper glume, but slightly longer ; pale J the length of the valve. 

 Perfect floret oblong, obliquely apiculate or acute, equally or slightly exceeding 

 the upper glume ; valve subcoriaceous, whitish, faintly 5-nerved ; anthers ^ line 

 long ; grain obovoid, J line long, white. 



EdbitSLt '. Natal : Shady woods near Durban, Drege 4289 ; coastland 

 Sutherland; and without precise locality Gerrard 89 ; Berea, 150 feet alt., March, 

 Wood 5936. 



" The fruiting florets often separate from the remainder of the spikelet, which 

 remains for a while attached to the pedicel, but falls at length as a whole. The 

 habit is not unlike that of Isachne albens, Trin." 



Drawn from Wood's specimen, the only one in the Government Herbarium. 



Fig 1, Portion of leaf with ligule ; 2, pedicels and spikelets ; 3, lower glume; 4, upper 

 glume; .5, lower valve ; 6, pale; 7,- upper valve; 8, pale ; 9, lodiciiles ; 10, stamens, ovarj, 

 style and stigma. All enlarrjed. 



