PLATE 407. 



Sporobolus Eehmanni, Hack. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 585). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



Perennial. — Culms rather robust, geniculate, more or less compressed below, 

 2 to 4 feet long, glabrous, smooth, 3 or 4-noded ; leaf sheaths rather tight, the 

 lower slipping from the culms and rolling in or folding, broad, glabrous and smooth, 

 or tubercled and hispid ; ligules reduced to a ciliate rim ; blades linear, tapering to 

 a long fine point, 6 to 10 inches by 3 to 4 lines, flat or almost so, glaucous, 

 glabrous or tubercled and hispid, primary nerves distant. 



Panicle erect, narrow, oblong, 1 to 1^ foot by 2 inches, ultimately rather lax ; 

 rhachis smooth ; branches solitary or often irregularly crowded, obliquely erect or 

 at length spreading, filiform, smooth or almost so, 1 to 3 inches long, loosely and 

 repeatedly branched, the lowest branchlets up to 9 lines long ; lateral pedicels 

 extremely short. 



Spikelets olive-grey, lanceolate-oblong, f to almost 1 line long. 



Glumes unequal, the loiver oblong, subacute, nerveless, about half the length 

 of the spikelet, the upper lanceolate-oblong, acute, about % the length of the 

 spikelet, 1 -nerved. Valve like the upper glume, but longer. Pale almost equalling 

 the valve. Stamens 3 ; anthers J line long. 



ESLbitat : Natal. Durban Flats, Buchanan 6 ; at the borders of woods near 

 (Jmlazi Eiver, Krauss 7 ; Tugela River, 600 to 1000 feet alt., Buchanan 245, 246. 



Drawn from Buchanan's 245, and compared with Buchanan's 246. 



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

 All enlarged. 



