Stiburus, Stapf. (Triphlebia, Stapf.) 



Spikelets laterally compressed, subsessile or shortly pedicelled, in spike-like 

 cylindric panicles ; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the 

 valves. Florets 4-5, hermaphrodite, the uppermost reduced, shortly exserted from- 

 the glumes. 



Glumes equal or subequal, membranous, lanceolate, caudate-acuminate, 

 1 -nerved. Valves very similar to the glumes, but 3-nerved ; callus very minute. 

 Pales shorter than the valves, 2-keeled. Lodicules 2, minute, hyaline, cuneate. 

 Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous ; styles short, distinct ; stigmas plumose, laterally 

 exserted. Grain enclosed by the hardly changed valve and pale, free, oblong, 

 terete ; embryo short ; hilum, basal, punctiform. 



Perennial, tufted ; blades very narrow, usually subsetaceous, long ; ligule a 

 ciliate rim. 



Panicle cylindric, dense, usually dark purple, greyish-villous. 



Species 1, in extra-tropical South Africa and in tropical Transvaal. 



PLATE 452. 



Stiburus alopecuroides, Stapf. (Fl Cap., Vol. VII., p 397). 



Nat. Order Graniinete. 



Densely ca^spitose. — Culms erect, J to Ij foot long, glabrous, simple, or 

 branched at the base. 



Leaves all basal, with scattered fine spreading hairs all over to glabrous ; 

 sheaths crovs^ded, rather firm, pallid, smooth, persistent ; blades usually setaceous 

 or filiform, very acute, 3 to more than 12 inches long, sometimes flat and then up 

 to 1 line broad, rather rigid 



Panicle f to 3 inches by 3 to S^ lines, sometimes interrupted at the base ; 

 branches solitary, adpressed to the rhachis ; lowest J to almost 1 inch long, divided 

 from the base or nearly so, smooth ; pedicels unequal, mostly very short. 



Spikelets about 2 lines long, densely crowded, usually dark purple. 



Glumes, valves and pales equally villous from fine greyish hairs. Glumes about 

 Ij line long, tips firm, subulate. Valves very slightly shorter, often mucronulate. 

 Anthers f line long. Grain | to 1 line long, reddisli brown. 



Sadita,t : Natal. Near De Beer's Pass, Wood 5993 ; Noodsberg, Wood 884 ; 

 Karkloof, Rehmann 7361 ; Umpumulo to Riet Vlei, Buchanan 166, 167 ; and 

 without precise locality, Buchanan 32 ; Gerrard 474. 



This is the grass which was formerly known in Natal as Koeleria Gerrardii, 

 Munro, but which has now been transferred to the genus Stiburus, of which it is 

 the only known representative. It is widely distributed in the Colony, but is not 

 so far as known to us of much, if any, agricultural value. , 



Fig 1, Spxkelet J 2, glume; 3, valve; 4, pale; 5, pistil, stamens, and lodicules, All 

 enlarged. 



