PLATE 487. 



Sporobolus pungens, Kunth. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, p. 587). 



Nat. Order Gramineaa. 



Perennial ; rhizome often long creeping, stoloniferous, stolons emitting 

 fascicled or solitary ascending culms, these 2 to 12 inches long, glabrous, very many- 

 noded, sheathed nearly all along, internodes alternately very short and long, hence the 

 leaves appear opposite ; culm-sheaths rather tight, slightly compressed, glabrous or 

 sometimes ciliate along the margins and bearded at the mouth, smooth ; ligule a 

 ciliate rim ; blades subulate-involute, often pungent, rarely flat towards the base, 

 from ^ to 4 inches long, rigid, firm, closely and strongly nerved, glabrous or scantily 

 long-hairy above, margins scaberulous. 



Panicle spike-like, cylindric, compact, rarely somewhat loosened, ^ to 3 inches 

 long ; branches short, branched from the base, scaberulous ; pedicels very short. 



Spikelets light to dark olive-green, 1 to IJ line long. 



Glumes lanceolate, acute or acuminate, keels acute, scaberulous above, the lower 

 equalling ^ to ^ of the upper, the latter as long as the valve or slightly longer and 

 like it 1 -nerved ; pale slightly shorter. Stamens 3 ; anthers | to 1 line long. Grain 

 ellipsoid, § line long, light brown, pericarp thin. 



Ha.bitRt : Natal. At the mouth of the Umzimkulu Eiver, Drege ; sand dunes 

 around Durban Bay, Krauss 67. 



Drawn from Krauss's specimen, kindly lent for the purpose by the Director of 

 the Royal Gardens and Herbarium at Kew. 



" A very variable littoral plant of most warm countries. The specimens from 

 Bathurst Division and from Natal are rather different in habit from the Western, 

 approaching the form common in the Mediterranean region, which originally was 

 understood under S. pungens." 



Fig 1, Lower glume ; 2, upper glume ; 3, A'alve ; 4, pale ; 5, pistil, stamens and lodlcules. 

 All enlarged. 



