V ULPiA, Grael. 
Spikelets laterally compressed after flowering, on sliort clavate [jedicels in 
usually more or less secund and spike- or racemedike panicles ; I'liaelnlki slender, 
disarticulatini'- above the frliuiies 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 tlie floret, or sliortly 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 perennfal, 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. Gap., Vol. YIL, p. 724). 
Nat. Order Gramineae. 
Annual, tufted. — Culms slender, geniculate, ascending or suberect, i to 1^ 
foot high, glabrous, smooth, 2- (sometimes 3-) noded, uppermost internode 2^ to 6 
inches long, usually wdiolly 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 ^ 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 ^ line long, smooth. 
Spikelets rather close or the lowest of the lower branches remote, 3^ 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), neiveless or 
1-nerved, upper to 2|- lines long, acute, setaceously acmninate, 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 to 2 lines long. 
Habitat: Natal. Ixopo, J. Schojield, in Government Herbarium, 8938 ; 10,489. 
Drawn from Schofield's specimens. 
Fig 1, Spikelet; 2, lower glume; 3, upper glvime ; A, valve ; 5, pale ; 6, pistil, stamen 
and lodicules. yl/l nilan/rd. 
