PLATE 402. 



Aristida vestita, Thunb. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 561). 



Nat. Order Gramineaj. 



Perennial, light green to glaucous ; rhizome very short, with dense tufts of 

 barren shoots and cu!ms, the latter erect, 1-2 feet high, simple, 2-1-noded, terete, 

 wiry, glabrous, smooth ; sheaths tight, smooth, scarcely striate, glabrous or the 

 lower more or less covered with a very fugacious wool ; ligule a line of very short 

 hairs ; blades con volute- setaceous from a few inches to more than 1 foot by scarcely 

 1 line when expanded, rigid, curved or flexuous, glabrous, smooth below, scabrid to 

 hispidulous above. 



Panicle efi'use or contracted, 3-6 inches by 2-5 inches ; rhachis strict or 

 flexuous; lower branches 2-3-nate, Ij to 3 inches long, usually spreading, sparingly 

 and remotely branched ; branchlets very flexuous, filiform to capillary, scaberulous ; 

 pedicels very fine, the longest equalling the spikelets. 



Spikelets often secund, .nodding, yellowish, rarely purplish, 5-6 lines long. 



Glumes rather firm, rounded at the back, obtuse or more or less 2-toothed, 

 the loiver linear-oblong, about half the length of the upper or less, this 

 narrow lanceolate-linear, 5-6 lines long. Valve linear, 4j to 5j lines long, not 

 beaked, scaberulous from the middle or almost smooth ; callus ^ line long ; awn 

 disarticulating from the valve, stipitate, foot 1 to 2^ lines long, twisted, bristles 

 divaricate or the lateral upright, f to 1 inch long ; pale broad, |- line long ; 

 lodicules f-| line long, finely nerved ; anthers 2J lines long ; grain very slender, 

 3 lines long. 



ElUtaA: Natal. Near Dundee, Grccji 90 {Wood 7450), March, 1899. 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; .3, valve ; 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens, and lodicules. 

 All enlurffed. 



