PLATE 176. 



Pennisetum sphacelatum Durand & Schinz. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII , p. 435). 



Nat. Order Gramiiiese. 



Perennial. — Culms on a short oblique rhizome, slender, 1 to 3 feet high, 

 about 3-noded simple, rough and pubescent or adpressedly hirsute below the panicle, 

 otherwise glabrous and smooth, internodes mostly exserted, the uppermost often 

 very long. Sheaths firm, lower crowded, short, at least on the innovation shoots, 

 persistent, striate, glabrous, or pubescent along the margins and near the mouth ;, 

 ligule a fringe of short silky hairs. 



Blades veary narrow, linear, filiform-convolute, 2 to 8 inches by | to Ij lines, 

 firm, flexuous, glabrous or hairy towards the base, rough in the upper part. 



Panicles cylindric, very dense, erect or nodding, 2 to 4 inches, by 3 to 4 lines, 

 pallid or slightly purplish ; rhachis slender, scabrid or pubescent like the very short 

 pedicels ; involucre of numerous pallid, slender, scabrid bristles of unequal length, 

 the longer half as long again as the spikelet or longer, one usually longer and 

 stouter than the rest. 



Spikelets solitary, lanceolate, acuminate to subulate-acuminate, if to 2 J lines 

 long, glabrous, pallid, tips usually purplish. 



Glumes very small, loiver often suppressed, obtuse or acute, hyaline, nerveless 

 or upper 1 -nerved. Florets equal or the lower which is i-educed to an empty valve 

 slightly shorter ; valves oblong-lanceolate, subulate-acuminate, 5-nerved or the 

 lower 3-nerved ; lodicules sub-quadrate. Anthers about 1 line long, tips naked ; 

 styles connate at the very base. 



EsibitRt: Natal. Umsinga and the base of the Biggarsberg range, Buchanan 

 107 ; Beit Vlei, 4000 feet alt., Buchanan 171 ; and without precise locality, 

 Buchanan 63, 72, 75 ; Van Beenen, 5000-6000 feet alt., March, Wood 5989 ; 

 marshy ground Mooi Biver district, 4000 feet alt., December, Mason 50 {Wood 

 7322). 



Drawn from Wood's 5989. 



Fig 1, Spikelet ; 2, upper glume ; 3, lower valve ; 4, upper valve ; 5, pale ; 6, pistil, 

 stamens and lodicules. All enlarged. 



