PLATE 414. 



Erageostis chloromelas, Steud. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, p. 602). 

 Nat. Order Gramine£e. 



Perennial, very densely tufted with closely packed innovation shoots. 



Culms erect or geniculate, slender, simple, very rarely branched above the 

 base, I to Ij foot long, sub-compressed, glabrous, or very rarely scantily hairy, 

 smooth, usually 2-noded, internodes exserted, uppermost very long ; loiver sheaths 

 crowded, very short, firm, adpressedly hairy to tomeutose at the very, base or quite 

 glabrous, persistent, upper tight, glabrous or with, few fine scattered hairs, long- 

 bearded at the mouth ; ligule a fringe of short hairs. Blades very narrow, filiform- 

 convolute, capillary above, flexuous, 3 to 6 inches long, rarely longer, J to 1 line 

 broad M^hen expanded, somewhat rigid, glaucous, glabrous or scantily hairy, 

 scaberulous or scabrid on the upper face and all over towards the tips, otherwise 

 smooth. 



Panicle open, ovoid or pyramidal, lax, 2 to 8 inches long, erect, rather rigid ; 

 axis filiform, smooth ; loiver branches in whorls of 5-3, or 2-nate, rarely all solitary, 

 spreading, finely filiform, straight or subflexuous, glabrous or sometimes with a few 

 fine hairs at the axils, longest 1 J to 4 inches long, undivided for J to 1 inch from 

 the base, then very loosely and at length divaricately branched, smooth or the 

 ultimate divisions scaberulous ; pedicels capillary, the lateral 1 to 3 lines long. 



Spikelets' scattered, linear, acute, 2 to 4 lines by J to f line, loosely 5 to 

 13-flowered, dark olive-grey to slate-grey ; rhachilla subpersistent, then disarticu- 

 lating, very slender, flexuous, smooth, or almost so, joints up to f line long. 



Glumes unequal, deciduous, lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong in profile, thinly 

 acute or subacute, membranous or hyaline, 1-nerved, scaberulous on the nerve ; 

 lower J to I line, upper | to 1 line long. Valves obliquely oblong in profile, 

 subacute to acute, ,| to | line long, membranous, smooth, side-nerves fine ; pales 

 equal to the valves, obtuse, keels fine, smooth or nearly so. Anthers about § line 

 long ; grain oblong-ellipsoid, obtusely quadrangular, J line long, brown ; embryo 

 large. 



Eabitat: Natal. Near Ladysmith, Rehmann 7130, 7184; Umhlanga, 

 Wood 6058 ; near Van Eeenen's Pass, 5000 to 6000 feet alt., M^ood 7221. 



Drawn from Wood's 7221, Van Reeuen, 14-12-1898. 



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

 All enlarged. 



