454 
CL VII. GRAMINEiE (Stapf). 
[ Digitaria . 
upwards, finely filiform, unequal, the longer about | lin. long, more 
or less angular, scaberulous upwards with a few minute rigid hairs 
round the subdiscoid tips. Spikelets appr essed, subimbricate or 
more scattered (the pairs or groups of spikelets up to 2 lin. apart), 
elliptic-oblong, subobtuse, f lin. by J lin., olive- to greyish-green 
with black more or less semilunar sides, finely hairy. Lower glume 
quite obsolete or the merest rudiments of a hyaline membrane ; 
irpper very delicate and easily rubbed off, ovate-oblong, obtuse, 
up to f lin. long, 3-nerved, with 4 lines of short clavate rather thick- 
walled hairs. Lower floret: valve elliptic-oblong, subobtuse, as 
long as the spikelet, finely but distinctly 5-nerved, hyaline, with a 
line of short clavate hairs along each side of the inner side-nerves 
and a marginal fringe of similar but shorter hairs, these often pale 
rufous, particularly upwards; valvule and lodicules microscopic. 
Upper floret elliptic-cblong, acute, as long as the spikelet, the 
back incompletely covered by the upper glume or soon quite 
bare and almost black from an early stage, chartaceous, rather 
tough, the valve with contiguous or slightly distant white 
margins. Anthers J lin. long. Grain white, elliptic in out- 
line, slightly compressed from the back, | lin. by over f lin. ; 
scut ell urn indistinctly marked off, almost half the. length of the 
grain. 
Nile Land. Uganda : grassy swamps near Kiwapu, 4000 ft., Dimmer, 1068 ! 
British East Africa : without precise locality, Dowell , 18 ! 20 bis ! 
The black often semilunar markings along the sides of the face of the spike- 
lets (lower floret) to which the name of the species is meant to allude, are due 
to the transparency of the glabrous spaces just within the submarginal nerves 
and the dark colouring of the fertile floret underneath it. 
23. D. delicatula, Staff. Annual, up to 2 ft. high. Culms erect 
or slightly geniculate, branched from near the base, the branches 
forming secondary culms like the primary and forming with them 
scanty fascicles, all the culms very slender,' very smooth, shining, 
glabrous, about 4-noded, the uppermost internode at length long- 
exserted, the others shorter or only slightly longer than the sheaths. 
Leaf -sheaths thin, somewhat loose and the lower often slipping off 
the internodes, coarsely striate, finely strigillose or hirsute (the 
upper), scantily bearded at the nodes ; ligules very short., truncate, 
ciliolate ; blades narrowly lineal, long-tapering to a fine point, 
4-9 in. by less to slightly more than 1 lin., flexuous, flat or loosely 
convolute, more or less rough, at least upwards, shortly and sparingly 
hirsute or copiously so at the base above the ligule, midrib very 
slender, lateral nerves very fine and close, the primary (2 on each 
side) slightly more raised. Racemes mostly 2-3, rarely 4, sessile, 
or bare at the base for a short distance- owing to the arrest of the 
spikelets, on a very slender subangular common rhachis (| to over 
1 in. long), erect or oblique, flexuous, very slender, about 3 in. long, 
pale greyish-green in flower, rather loose ; rhachis slightly wavy, 
