PLATE 471. 



Panicum arrectum, Hack. (Fl. Cap., Vol, VII., p. 393). 



Nat. Order Graminefe. 



Perennial, quite glabrous. — Culms ascending from a prostrate rooting base, IJ 

 to 2 feet long, compressed below, terete in the upper part, glabrous, many-noded, 

 scantily branched ; sheaths somewhat loose, striate, smooth, the lower withering ; 

 ligule a dense fringe of hairs ; blades linear, acute, 2 J to 4 inches, IJ to 2 lines, 

 usually more or less convolute, rigid, green, smooth except the scabrid margins. 

 False spikes 2 to 4, distant on a triquetrous smooth axis up to 3 inches long, secund, 

 2-ranked, 1 to 1^ inch long ; rhachis linear, J to |- line broad, flat on the back, with 

 a very prominent wavy midrib in front, smooth ; pedicels solitary, very short, stout, 

 tips subdiscoid, with 1-2 spreading hairs. 



Spikelets contiguous, oblong, subacute, IJ to If line long, green or tipped with 

 purple. 



Glumes, loioer facing the rhachis, thinly membranous, elliptic to rotundate- 

 ovate, obtuse, I" to f line long, sub- 7 -nerved ; upper membranous, oblong, con- 

 spicuously 7 to 9-nerved, nerves green, iower floret male ; valve like the upper glume, 

 but narrower, 7 -nerved ; pale equal, -obtuse, anthers over 1 line long. Perfect floret 

 broadly elliptic, obtuse, Ij to 1^ line long ; valve 7 -nerved, transversely wrinkled. 



Ea,bitSit ; Natal. Without precise locality, Gerrard 686. 



The plate copied from a drawing made by Miss Smith at Kew, by kind per- 

 mission of the Director. 



Fig 1, Part of rhachis and two spikelets ; 2, lower glume ; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower 

 Talve ; 5, pale ; 6, upper yalve ; 7, pale ; 8, pistil and lociicules, All enlarged, 



