452 
CLVII. GRAMINE^3 (Stapf). 
[. Digitaria . 
punctate, pale when ripe. Anthers £ lin. long. Grain broad- 
oblong, acute, 1 lin. long, whitish, plano-convex ; scutellum elliptic, 
less than half the length of the grain. — Panicum xanthotrichum, 
Hack, in Oest. Bot. Zeitschr. 1901, 533. 
North Central. Shari Territory : Bagas country ; on the left bank of the 
Tomi River, Chevalier, 5602 ! 
Nile Land. Jur: Ghattas’ Great Seriba, Schweinfurih, 2303 ! 2380! 
Hackel in Oest. Bot. Zeitschr. 1901, 366, describes a Panicum Schweinfurlhii, 
based on no. 2303 of Schweinfurth’s collection. The Kew specimen of no. 
2303 is clearly a younger and more robust state of no. 2380. The latter was 
evidently growing in dense masses — the Kew sample of it consists of over a dozen 
individuals which seem to have been pulled up together — and was collected 
in the same locality a month later, in the fruiting state. Dense growth would 
account sufficiently for the more slender and meagre condition of the specimens 
of no. 2380, whilst such differences as exist in the condition of the spikelets 
appear to be solely due to age. On the other hand, Hackel describes the spike- 
lets of his P. Schweinfurthii as longitudinally depressed or subsulcate and 
appressedly hairy and ciliate towards the margins with the cilia gathered into 
a brush-like point extending beyond the body of the lower floret, and he adds, 
in a note, that the groove of its valve is glabrous as in Digitaria gayana. It 
will be necessary to compare Hackel’s original to explain the discrepancy. 
Chevalier’s 5602 matches exactly with Schweinfurth’s 2303. 
21. D. ternata A Stapf in wer, FI. Cap. vii. 376. Annual. Culms 
fascicled, erect from a geniculate base, slender, simple, rarely branched 
low down, J-2 ft. long, glabrous or more or less beset with long fine 
spreading hairs below the racemes, about 2-noded. Leaf-sheaths 
often slightly loose, glabrous, smooth ; ligules short, membranous, 
truncate ; blades linear -lanceolate to linear, acute, 2-9 in. by 3 lin., 
flat, flaccid, glabrous or sparingly beset with fine spreading hairs 
particularly towards the base, midrib very slender, primary nerves 
about 4 on each side, often indistinct. Racemes 2-7, sessile, sub- 
digitate, with a short common rhachis, erect or spreading, very 
slender, straight, 2-6 in. long, usually rather dense, greyish-green ; 
rhachis straight or slightly wavy, J to almost \ lin. wide, subtri- 
que trous, more or less winged, wings herbaceous, scabrid, midrib 
obtuse on the back, very slender and raised on the face towards 
the insertion of the pedicels into an acute ridge ; internodes usually 
not over 1 lin. long ; pedicels 2-3-nate, very unequal, the longest 
up to 1 lin. long, very slender, angular, scabrid, hispidulous towards 
the hardly thickened tips, the hairs forming a short terminal tuft 
or beard. Spikelets appressed, subimbricate, oblong-elliptic, obtuse 
or subobtuse, 1 lin. long, pale. Lower glume 0 ; upper linear- 
oblong to linear -lanceolate, acute or obtuse, shorter and narrower 
than the upper floret, 3-nerved, with 4 fine lines of appressed or 
somewhat loose clavate-tipped hairs, lin. long. Lower floret: 
valve oblong-elliptic, subobtuse, membranous, as long as the spike- 
let, prominently 5-nerved, with lines of hairs in all the spaces between 
the nerves and along the margins, or the inner 2 spaces glabrous, 
hairs appressed or loose and shaggy towards the tip of the valve, 
