446 clvii. gramineje (Stapf). [Digitaria. 
rather convex on the back, as long as the spikelet, thinly char- 
taceous, margins of valve meeting. Anthers 1 lin. long. 
Mozambique Distr. Nyasaland : without precise locality, Buchanan, 
15. D. seminuda, Stapf. Perennial, with a very short early 
disintegrating rhizome ; innovations extravaginal, few, with glabrous 
cataphylls, up to over 3 ft. high. Culms erect, slender, simple, 
up to 8-noded, glabrous, smooth, lower and intermediate internodes 
usually shorter than or as long as the sheath, upper or uppermost 
exserted. Leaf-sheaths somewhat tight, glabrous, striate ; ligules 
membranous, truncate, ciliolate, very short ; blades linear, long- 
tapering to a fine point, up to over 1J ft. by 2 to over 2J lin., flat, 
green, somewhat firm but flexuous, glabrous, rough above, midrib 
slender ; primary lateral nerves 4-5 on each side, rather prominent. 
Racemes up to 10, sessile, subdigitate, subcomposite at the base 
(secondary racemes very short) with a slender more or less rough 
common rhachis from 1 to 3 in. long (the lowest raceme usually 
solitary and distant from the following), erect, slender, straight, 
5-9 in. long, pale greyish-green in flower, rather dense, particularly 
downwards ; rhachis straight, slender, up to 1 lin. wide, triquetrous 
and narrowly marginate at the base, higher up flat, winged, wings 
green, scabrid along the margins, rough on the face, midrib stout, 
smooth, whitish, rounded on the back, slightly raised and scaberulous 
on the face, internodes up to 1 lin. long ; pedicels in clusters of 
up to 6, finely filiform, flexuous, terete or the longer more or less 
angular, scaberulous, with small discoid tips, the longest up to 1 lin. 
long. Spikelets appressed, imbricate, secund at least upwards, 
oblong-lanceolate, very acute or acutely acuminate, 1 lin. long, 
obscurely appressedly silky. Lower glume a very minute cuff-like 
scale at the base of the spikelet, early breaking up and disappear- 
ing ; upper ovate to lanceolate, obtuse or acute, lin. long, 
delicately 3-nerved, with 4 lines of very fine appressed or loose 
and flexuous thick-walled obtuse (but not clavate-tipped) hairs 
up to § lin. long. Lower floret : valve of the shape and size of the 
spikelet, thin, 7 -nerved, with the nerves fine, often obscured by the 
pubescence, except the middle one, 7- or sub-7-nerved, with lines 
of short hairs between the inner pairs of side-nerves of each half 
and along the margins, appressed or the submarginal loose ; valvule 
an ovate delicate scale up to lin. long, exceeding the minute 
odicules. Upper floret lanceolate, acutely acuminate, as long as 
the spikelet, early dark brown, the back very incompletely covered 
by the upper glume, the valve with whitish hyaline parallel soihe- 
what distant margins. Anthers hardly | lin. long. 
Upper Guinea. Sierra Leone: Mabum, 370 ft., Thomas, 1516! French 
Guinea : Kouria, Chevalier, 15020 ! Southern Nigeria : Opobo, Jeffreys, 24 ! 
