Digilaria.~\ 
CL VII. GRAMINEiE (Stapf). 
4BB 
Upper floret thinly chartaceous, oblong, acute, pale brown, 1J lin. 
by | lin. Anthers J lin. long. 
Lower Guinea. Angola : country of the Ganguellas and Ambuellas, Goss- 
weiler, 3756 ! in Mumua woods in the Siengo-Kuito Valley, Gossweiler , 3761 ! 
4. D. nodosa, Pari. PI. Nov. vel Min. Not. 39, and in Webb & 
Bert. Phyt. Canar. iii. 384, t. 246. Perennial, with a short stout 
rhizome and close extravaginal innovations covered with silky- 
tomentose cataphylls, rarely with some additional intravaginal 
innovations. Culms erect or shortly ascending,' 1-1 J ft. high, glabrous, 
slender, usually 2-noded and simple with densely crowded basal 
leaves or the base lengthened up to over J ft., ascending with more 
distinct internodes and distant leaves, branching from the third 
or fourth node upwards, forming a bundle of secondary culms like 
the ordinary simple ones. Leaf-sheaths tight or the lower at length 
loosened, striate, the uppermost long-exserted, glabrous or loosely 
beset with spreading tubercle-based hairs, the lowest like the cata- 
phylls silky tomentose towards the base and long-persistent ; li- 
gules scarious, up to over 1 lin. long, glabrous ; blades linear, tapering 
to a fine point, 3-6 in. by 1-2 lin., flat, subflaccid, glaucous, glabrous 
or finely pubescent, besides being more or less beset with long spreading 
hairs particularly towards the base, margins cartilaginous, scaberu- 
lous upwards, lateral nerves numerous, fine and close, the primary 
rarely more prominent. Kacemes 6 to many, sessile, digitate or 
subdigitate, with a slender more or less angular common rhachis 
(rarely over 2 in. long) and then often solitary or 2-3-nate, erect 
or obliquely erect, rarely spreading, slender, rather loose, 2-6 in. 
long, whitish green ; rhachis very slender, J- J lin. wide, triquetrous, 
angles marginate, scabrid ; pedicels 2-nate, or lower down 3-4-nate 
(rarely), finely filiform, more or less angular, scaberulous, unequal, 
the longer up to over 1J lin. long. Spikelets loosely appressed, 
scarcely imbricate except when quite young, lanceolate, 1J-1J lin. 
long, more or less silky. Lower glume membranous, ovate or 
triangular, acute or obtuse, up to J lin. long, nerveless ; upper 
narrowly lanceolate, acute, up to 1 lin. long, 3-nerved with 4 lines 
of very fine usually appressed silky ‘hairs. Lower floret : valve 
lanceolate, acutely acuminate, as long as thespikelet, thin, 7-nerved, 
middle and side nerves (except the outermost) prominent, lines of 
usually appressed long extremely fine subacute silky hairs between 
the inner two side-nerves (of each half) and along the margins or 
all over; valvule and lodicules very minute. Upper floret thinly 
chartaceous, narrowly oblong, finely and acutely acuminate, almost 
as long as the spikelet, first pale then turning brown ; margins of 
the valve slightly distant, parallel. Anthers § lin. long. — D. setigera, 
Schmidt, Beitr. FI. Cap. Yerd. Ins. 133 (partly). D. commutata , Coss.' 
& Dur. FI. Alg. 34. D. eriantha, Stapf in Kew Bulletin, 1907, 
212, not in Dyer, FI. Cap. D. sanguinalis , var. ciliaris, Stapf, l.c. 
FL. TROP. AFR. VOL. IX. — PT. 3- 2 F 
