PLATE 173. 



Setaria imberbis, Roem & Schult. (Fl. Cap. Vol. VII., p 427). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



Annual. — Culms often copiously fascicled, ascending from a geniculate base, 

 slender, J to 3 feet long, branched, terete or compressed below, deeply grooved and 

 compressible in the upper part where they are sometimes swollen and very finely 

 villous or puberulous and scabrid, otherwise glabrous and smooth, 3 to 7-noded, 

 internodes slightly exserted or at length slipping out of the sheaths ; sheaths 

 striate, glabrous ; ligules very short, membranous, truncate, up to ^ line long, 

 ciliate ; blades narrow, linear, long, tapering to an acute point, 2 to ti inches long by 

 1 to 3 lines wide, flat, flaccid, glabrous (in the African specimens), rarely slightly 

 rigid and involute and with long scattered hairs, tinely scaberulous. 



Panicle erect, straight or flexuous, cylindric, slender, J to 3 inches long by 

 about 2 lines wide, dense ; axis slender, minutely villous or puberulous ; branches 

 reduced to a subsessile one-sided involucre of 3 to 8 fine scabrid bristles, 1^ to 4 

 lines long, pal id below, fulvous or reddish above, and subtending usually one 

 j)erfect and often one arrested spikelet. 



Spikelets elliptic-oblong, minutely apiculate or obtuse, 1 to Ij line long, 

 pallid or purplish at the tips, glabrous. 



Glumes very thin, membranous, ovate, acute or subacute, whitish, lower 

 3-nerved, rather less than half as long as the spikelet : upper 5-nerved, rather 

 more than half as long as the spikelet, nerves green ; lower florets equal, lower 

 barren or male ; valve equalling the sjsikelet, flat, similar to the upper glume ; pale 

 subequal to the valve; perfect floret plano-convex, ovate-elliptic, usually minutely 

 apiculate, jjallid or purplish at the tips ; valve coriaceous, transversely wrinkled, 

 6 -nerved. Anthers \ line long. 



Eabitat': Natal. Greytown, 3000 feet alt., Buchanan 177 ; near the Tugela 

 River, JOOO feet alt., Buchanan 176 ; and without precise locality, Buchanan 177c ; 

 Van Keenen, 5-6000 feet alt., March, Wood 5^91. 



Also in the Mascarene Islands and in Tropical East Africa ; very common 

 throughout Tropical America. 



Fig. 1, Lower ^lume ; 2, upper glume; 3, lower valve; 4, pale; 5, upper valve; 

 6, pale ; 7, pistil, otainens and loJicules. All enlmyed. 



