VoLPiA, Gmel. 



Spikelets laterally compressed after flowering, on short clavate pedicels in 

 usually more or less secund and spike- or raceme-like joanicles ; rhachilla slender, 

 disarticulating above the glumes and between the fertile valves. Florets 5 to 7, 

 long exserted from the glumes, perfect, except the reduced upper ones, or the 

 lowest perfect and the rest reduced to empty valves. Glumes very unequal, lower 

 very minute or obsolete, or like the upper subulate to subulate-lanceolate, but 

 much shorter, 1- (or the upper 3-) nerved. Valves subulate-lanceolate, passing 

 into an awn, rounded on the back, faintly 5-nerved ; awn straight, often long ; 

 callus small, obtusely glabrous. Pales 2-keeled, entire or minutely 2-toothed. 

 Lodicules 2, hyaline, unequally lobed. Stamens 1-3, filaments very short ; anthers 

 usually enclosed in the floret during flowering or permanently. Ovary glabrous (in 

 the South African species) or minutely hispid at the top ; stigmas sessile, plumose, 

 permanently enclosed in the floret, or shortly exserted at the base. Grain linear, 

 strongly compressed from the back, concave in front, more or less adhering to the 

 pale or also to the valve ; embryo small; hilum filiform, long. 



Annual or perennial, slender grasses ; blades linear, very narrow, usually 

 convolute or involute, at least when dry ; panicles contracted, narrow^ usually more 

 or less secund, with short clavate pedicels. Spikelets subcylindric and acuminate 

 when young, then opening out, laterally compressed and broader upwards; flowers 

 often cleistogamous. Species about 20, mostly in the Mediterranean region and 

 the adjacent countries. The two species found in South Africa have been intro- 

 duced into many parts of the world. 



PLATE 493. 



Vulpia Myuros, Gmel. (Fl. Cap., Vol. VII., p. 724). 

 Nat. Order Graminese. 



Annual, tufted. — Culms slender, geniculate, ascending or suberect, J to 1^ 

 foot high, glabrous, smooth, 2- (sometimes 3-) noded, uppermost internode 2|- to 6 

 inches long, usually wholly enclosed in the uppermost sheath ; sheaths (particularly 

 the upper) rather loose, smooth, glabrous ; ligules very short, often obtusely auricled ; 

 blades linear, tapering to a very acute point, 1 to 6 inches by J to 1 line, flat or in- 

 volute when dry, or setaceous, flaccid to subrigid, finely and prominently few-nerved, 

 puberulous or scabrid on the upper surface, otherwise glabrous and smooth. 



Panicle spike-like, erect or nodding and flexuous, narrow, subsecund or secund 

 or facing all sides, 2 to 10 inches long ; rhachis filiform, acutely triquetrous, like 

 the branches scabrid along the angles or smooth below ; branches fascicled or 2-nate 

 and very unequal, or solitary (lowest often very remote), racemose from the base 

 or the upper reduced to a solitary spikelet, adpressed or lowest slightly nodding-; 

 lateral pedicels about J line long, smooth. 



Spikelets rather close or the lowest of the lower branches remote, 3j to 5 lines 

 long (exclusive of the awns), loosely 3 to 6-flowered ; rhachilla joints up to f line long. 



Glumes, loiver reduced to a minute scale (particularly in the lateral spikelets) 

 or like the upper subulate, but much shorter (up to f line long), nerveless or 

 1-nerved, upper 1^ to 2|- lines long, acute, setaceously acuminate, 1-nerved. Valves 

 linear-lanceolate, acuminate in profile, 2 to 3^ lines long, faintly 5-nerved, scabrid, 

 sometimes ciliate in the upper part ; awn 3 to 10 lines long, fine, scabrid. Stamen 

 1 ; anther ^ to f line long. Grain 1 J to 2 lines long. 



Eaibit&t: Natal. Ixopo, J. Schofield, in Government Herbarium, 8938 ; 10,489. 



Drawn from Schofield's specimens. 



Fig 1, Spikelet ; 2, lower glume ; 3, upper glume ; 4, valve ; 5, pale ; 6, pistil, stamen 

 and lodicules. All enlarged. 



