PLATE 484. 



Aristida congesta, Roem & Schult. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, p. 558). 



Nat. Order Graminese. 



Pf:RENXiAL, tufted, light green or glaucous, glabrous. 



Culms slender, rather wiry, erect or geniculately ascending, compressed below, 

 J to 2 feet long, simple or branched from some of the lower nodes, 3 to 4-noded ; 

 sheaths tight, smooth ; blades usually very narrow, linear, acute, 1 to 6 inches by 1 

 line, rarely larger, usually folded or convolute, rigid, curved, rarely flat, smooth 

 below, scabrid to hispidulous above. 



Panicle spike-like, often interrupted, with 1 to 2 shortly peduncled, more or 

 less spreading lateral, pseudo-spikes, 2 to 6 inches long ; pedicels very short. 



Spikelets densely crowded, 3J to 4 lines, rarely up to o lines long. 



Glumes keeled, keels smooth or almost so, the lower lanceolate, gradually passing 

 into a long mucro, 3 lines long, the upper linear, emarginate, long mucronate, 3.', to 

 5 lines long. Valve linear, produced into a short twisted beak, usually slightly 

 shorter than the upper glume, minutely scaberulous above ; callus ^ line long ; awns 

 jointed with the valves, but not disarticulating, diverging, fine, 5 to 7 lines long ; 

 pale not quite ^ line long, nerveless or almost so ; lodicules J to f line long, 5 to 

 6-nerved. Anthers | line long ; grain up to If line long, deeplv grooved. 



EaibitSii : Natal. Buchanaii 1 24. 



Also in Cape Colony and Basutoland. 



Drawn from Buchanan's 124, kindly lent for the purpose bv the Director of the 

 Eoyal Gardens and Herbarium at Kew. 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glumr ; 3, valve, front view ; 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stameus 

 and lodicules. All enlarged. 



