PLATE 199. 



Aristida junciformis, Trill. & Rupr. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 556). 



Nat. Order Gramiuete. 



Perennial, loosely cfespitose, sometimes stoloniferous. Rhizome slender, 

 oblique or creeping, covered like the innovation-buds with imbricate, short ovate 

 acute or pungent scales. 



Culms fascicled, erect, 1 to 1^ foot long, slender, usually branched, glabrous, 

 compressed be'ow, wiry, 3 to 4-noded, internodes exserted, culm-nodes slightly 

 swollen and sometimes protruding above the obscure sheath-nodes ; sheaths tight, 

 the loiver keeled, often slipping from the stem and rolling in, glabrous or villous. 



Blades very narrow, gradually passing into the sheaths, subsetaceous, acute, 

 up to 1 foot long, rigid, convolute or folded below, curved or flexuous, smooth 

 below, minutely scaberulous above. 



Panicle narrow, 2 to 6 inches long, erect or nodding ; rhachis angular ; 

 branches fascicled, erect, flexuous or nodding, the lowest ^ to '2 inches long, often 

 undivided for 1 inch or more, filiform to capillary, scaberulous ; lateral pedicels 

 short or almost 0. 



Spikelets light green to yel'owish, 2-3 near the tips of the branchlets, 3j to 

 ij lines long. 



Glumes unequal, thin, acute or subacute, 1 -nerved, nerve excurrent into a 

 fine bristle, 1 to Ij line long, the lower lanceolate, 2 to 2|- lines long, the upper 

 sublinear. Valve linear, convolute, produced into a short slightly twisted beak, 

 as long as the upper glume, smooth or scaberulous below the beak ; callus obtuse ; 

 awns continuous with the valve, very flne, 7 to 15 lines long ; pale | line long; 

 lodicules delicate, lanceolate, over J line long ; anthers 1 line long, not apiculate. 



Habitat: Natal. Coast line to 1000 feet alt., Sutherland; Kathlaniba 

 Mountains, Sutherland ; Weston, Mooi River, Rehmann 7342 ; near Durban, 

 Williamson 34 ; Plant 61 ; and without precise locality, Buchanan 1289 ; in the 

 Lubeck Herbarium, Drege 4349; Karkloof, 3000-4000 feet alt., Wylie {Wood 

 6015) ; Clairmont, near Durban, Wood 6052. 



Also in the Orange River Colony. 



Fig 1, Lower g-lume ; 2, upper glume ; 3, valve ; 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens and 

 lodicules. All enlarged. 



