PLATE 447. 



Ehrharta calycina, Sm. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 674). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



Perennial, tufted, rarely stoloniferous — Culms usually geniculate, slender, 

 simple or scantily branched, 1 to 2 feet long, smooth, glabrous, very rarely minutely 

 villous below, 4 to 6-noded ; sheaths glabrous, rarely veversedly pubescent, rather 

 tight ; ligules very short, truncate, denticulate ciliate ; blades linear from a 

 clasping often denticulate and ciliate base, long and gradually tapering or shortly 

 acute, rarely subobtuse, 1 to 4 inches, by 1 to 3 lines, flaccid or rigid, flat or 

 involute to setaceous, glaucous, scaberulous, glabrous or hairy, margins sometimes 

 wa,vy, scabrid. 



Panicle very narrow, nodding, 3 to 9 inches long, subsecund, rhachis flexuous, 

 smooth ; branches in distant semiwhoTls, very unequal, the longest rarely more 

 than 1 inch long, simple or scantily branched, spreading or erect, subcapillary, 

 flexuous, smooth. 



Spikelets pallid, rarely purplish, oblong, 2^ to 3 lines long. 



Glumes subequal, narrow-oblong, acute or subobtuse, 7-nerved. Valves, 

 empty ones unequal, loosely villous, lover very narrow, linear-oblong, acute, as 

 long as the lower glume or shorter, sub-5-nerved, shortly bearded at the base in 

 front, the upper oblong, obtuse, mucronate (mucro up to f line long), as long as 

 the upper glume or longer, 5-nerved, with 2 large semi-lunar appendages at the 

 base, beardless ; fertile valve oblong, obtuse, slightly shorter than the upper empty 

 valve, glabrous or scantily hairj^, obscurely 5 to 7-nerved ; lodicules .glabrous. 

 Stamens 6, anthers 1^ line long ; stigmas brush-like ; grain l^ line long. 



Eabitat: Natal. Sand dunes near the mouth of the Umlazi River, Kravss 

 414 ; Clairmont, 50 feet alt.. Wood 7261. 



" A very polymorphic species, of which Nees distinguishes 6 varieties and 

 several sub-varieties ; but the characters used by him are so uncertain that I find 

 it useless to retain his subdivisions." 



Fig 1, Lower ghime; 2, upper {rlnmo ; 3, 1st valve ; 4, 2nd valve in profile; 5, fertile 

 valve ; 6, pale ; 7, pistil, stamens and lodicules. A/I nihirffcr/. 



