Erageostis, Beauv. 
Spikelets usually strongly laterally compressed, peclicelled in open or con- 
tracted panicles, rarely sessile in simple or compound spikes, very rarely articulate 
on the pedicels ; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the valves 
or tough and persistent, glabrous, sometimes more or less scaberulous ; very rarely 
minutely hairy. Florets '2 to many, perfect or the upperm<)st reduced. 
Glumes unequal or equal, usually membranous, 1 -nerved, or the upper some- 
times 3-nerved, keeled, persistent or deciduous. Valves more or less iml)ricate, 
ovate to lanceolate, acute or obtuse, entire, muticous, membranous to chartaceous, 
3-nerved, glabrous, very rarely minutely })ubescent ; side-nerves short or almost 
percurrent. Pales e([ual to the valves or slightly shorter, membranous, 2-keeled, 
deciduous or persistent on the rhachilla. Lodicules 2, small, cuneate, more or less 
fleshy. Stamens 3, rarely 2. Ovary glabrous ; styles distinct ; stigmas plumose, 
laterally exserted. Grain enclosed by the scarcely altered valve and pale and 
deciduous with them, or more commonly falling, with the deciduous valve, leaving 
the more or less persistent jjale behind, oblong to olxn'oid or globose, round or very 
obtusely triquetrous or quadrangular in cross section ; pericarp thin, sometimes 
slightly swelling or separating; embryo often i as long as the grain (or sometimes 
longer) ; hilum punctiform, basal. 
Perennial or Annual, of very varying liabit ; Ijlades narrow ; ligule reduced 
to a fringe of usually minute hairs ; panicles lax to effuse or contracted to spike-liice, 
or transformed into simple or conq)ound spikes ; spikelets usually more or less olive- 
green or olive-grey, breaking up variously, very rarely deciduous as a whole 
Species very numerous in the warm parts of the world. 
PLATE 412. 
Eragrostis c.esia, Stapf (Fl. Cap., Vol. VIL, ]>. oDl)). 
Nat. ( )rder Gramineie. 
Perennial, densely tufted. — Culms erect, slender, compressed, sim})le, f to 1^ 
foot long, glabrous, smooth, 1-noded, at or below the middle, internodes shortly 
exserted, or both or the upper alone enclosed ; louver sheaths crowded, almost 
flabellate, strongly compressed and keeled, often pinkish with white margins, iipper 
tight or Avidening upwards, all quite glabrous and smooth except at the scantily 
bearded mouth ; ligule a fringe of minute hairs ; blades tightly convolute, finely 
setaceous, 3 to 10 inches long, Hexuous, rather firm, glabrous, smooth. 
Panicle nodding, contracted, more or less linear, 3 to 8 inches long ; axis filiform, 
smooth ; branches solitary, rather distant, lowest often enclosed at the base in the 
uppermost sheath, finely filiform, compressed, smooth, divided from the base or some 
distance above it; branchlets distant, simply racemose or the lower again divided and 
then up to \ inch long, usually adpressed to the branches; pedicels short to very short, 
Spikelets rather crowded, lanceolate, acute, '2h; to lines by 1 line, grey, 
closely 3 to 5-flowered, rhacliilla disarticulating, smooth. 
Glltmes unequal, deciduous, linear-oblong in profile, acute or subobtuse, sub- 
hyaline, 1-nerved or (particularly the lower) nerveless, lower | to f line long, uiyper 
over 1 line long. Valves lanceolate, acute or sometimes mucronulate, i^- to l| line 
long, thin, smooth except on the scaberulous acute keels. Pales 1 line long, keels 
narrowly winged, scaberulous Anthers \ line long. 
Habitat : Natal. Riet Vley, 4000 to 5000 feet alt., Bvchanmi 240. 
Drawn from Buchanan's specimeiL 
Fio- 1, Lower glmiio ; 2, upper glume ; o, valve ; 4, pale ; 5, ^tameIl^;, })istil and lodieules. 
A// cn/nrf/cf/. 
