Chloris, Swartz. 



Sptkelets of 2-4 florets, sessile, crowded, unilateral, 2-seriate on a slender 

 rhachis ; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes, tough between the valves, 

 more or less produced ; lowest floret hermaphrodite, the second male or barren, the 

 following, if present, barren, often minute. 



Glumes 2, persistent, narrow, keeled, acute and mucronate, very thin, or 

 broad, and the upper obtuse, more or less bilobed and rounded on the back. 

 Hermaphrodite floret ; valve narrow or broad, 3-nerved, acute or obtuse, minutely 

 2-toothed, usually awned from below the apex, often ciliate ; pale almost equalling 

 the valve, 2-keeled ; lodicules 2, minute, delicate, glabrous ; stamens 3 ; ovary 

 glabrous, styles distinct, short ; stigmas laterally exserted. Male floret ; valve 

 and pale as in the hermaphrodite flower, but smaller and glabrous. liudimentary 

 florets glabrous, awned or awnless, small to very small, usually without a trace of 

 a pale. Grain oblong, triquetrous ; embryo rather large ; hilum punctifonn, basal. 



Perennial or Annual ; leaves flat or folded ; spikes solitary or several to 

 many in terminal umbels or short racemes, erect or stellately spreading. 



Species 40-45 in the tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres. 



PLATE 435. 



Chlorts rycnothrix, Trin. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 641). 



Nat. Order Graminefc. 



Perennial or Annual (flowering the first year ?) |^ to 1 foot high. Stems 

 prostrate, emitting tufts of barren shoots and culms from the rooting nodes. 



Culms geniculately ascending, 2-3-noded, more or less sulcate below, glabrous, 

 upper internodes exserted. 



Leaves conspicuously distichous ; basal sheaths much compressed, keeled, 

 short, uppermost usually subtumid, all glabrous, smooth ; ligules membranous, up 

 to ^ line long, ciliolate ; blades linear, obtuse, Ij to 2 inches by 1 J to 2 lines, 

 rarely longer, flat, glaucous, glabrous, smooth or scaberulous above, margins rough. 

 Spikes 3 to 9, sessile or some shortly peduncled, umbelled or subumbelled, suberect, 

 at length usually spreading, pallid or purplish, Ij to 3 inches long ; rhachis scabrid, 



Spikelets 2-awned, ^ line long ; rhachilla joints between the valves f the 

 length of the lower valve, fine, rhachilla not produced. 



Glumes very narrow, lanceolate, acuminate, the lower |- to f line long, the 

 upper 1 to l\ line, keels very scabrid. Lower valve linear-oblong in profile, 

 acute, minutely 2-toothed, \\ line long, glabrous, keel and tip scaberulous ; callus 

 minutely bearded, awn very fine, 6 to 8 lines long ; pale glabrous, keels scabrid ; 

 anthers \ line long ; grain linear-oblong, | line long ; upper valve rudimentary, 

 empty, ^ line long, awn 2 to 3 lines long. 



Eaibitat: Natal. Umpumulo, 1800 feet alt., Buchanan 185; Inanda, 1800 

 feet alt., Wood 1590. 



Also in tropical Africa, and Eastern Brazil and Paraguay. 



Drawn from Buchanan's 185. 



Fig I, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; .S, valve ; 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens and lodicules j 

 6, upper valve. All enlarged. 



