Digitaria.~\ 
CL VII. GRAMINE2E (Stapf). 
459 
membrane, early disappearing ; upper thin, oblong with a delicate 
hyaline obtuse (flattened out) tip, as long as the spikelet, delicately 
5-nerved with 4 lines of extremely fine silvery hairs, hairs curled or 
circinate upwards. Lower floret : valve similar to the upper glume 
but broader and finely 7-nerved, the spaces between the midrib and 
the more prominent innermost side-nerves glabrous, hairs equalling 
but not exceeding the tips, up to f lin. long ; valvule and lodicules 
very minute. Upper floret as long as the spikelet, narrowly oblong, 
subacute, the sides slightly exposed when ripening, pale to brownish 
when ripe, thinly chartaceous. Anthers \ lin. long. 
Upper Guinea. French Sudan : Dendela, Chevalier, 629 ! Ivory Coast : 
Bingerville, along roads, Chevalier, 16003 ! Southern Nigeria: Lagos Island, 
Dalziel, 1123 ! MacGregor, 157 partly ! Northern Nigeria : Lokoja, Richardson ! 
Chevalier’s specimens from Bingerville evidently represent a first year’s 
growth, although they are in flower. They form tufts of flowering culms and 
leafy shoots with a few young trailers. The leafy shoots and the trailers might 
be assumed to grow into flowering culms later in the season, and if so the grass 
would have to be considered as an annual. Chevalier’s Dendela specimen, 
however, possesses unmistakable innovation-buds covered with short silky- 
tom entose cataphylls and similar cataphylls, are found at the base of one of the 
detached culms of Dalziel’s specimen. The Bingerville specimens were collected 
in the middle of December, the Dendela one at the end of March. 
28. D. Hackelii^ap/. Perennial, with slender creeping stolons, 
their short and appressedly pubescent internodes covered with 
tight rather firm obtuse closely nerved, at length glabrescent, brown 
cataphylls. Culms ascending or prostrate at the base, 7-12-noded, 
simple for the short first 3-5 internodes, then usually branched 
from the next 1-3 nodes, branches erect, often as long as the primary 
culm and resembling it, forming a loose scanty fascicle with it, 
uppermost internodes very long. Leaf -sheaths terete, rather tight, 
the lower and intermediate, particularly at the branching nodes, at 
length slipping off, somewhat thin, finely and sparingly hirsute, 
hairs spreading, tubercle-based ; ligules scarious, short ; blades 
linear, tapering to an. acute point, 2-3 in. by 1 J-2J lin., thin, somewhat 
flaccid, green, loosely hirsute, hairs like those of the sheaths, some- 
times 2 from a common tubercle, midrib prominent, slender, lateral 
nerves obscure. Racemes 2-5, sessile, subdigitate with a short 
slender common rhachis, erect, straight or nearly so, very slender, 
somewhat loose, 2-3 in. long ; rhachis very slender, slightly wavy, 
triquetrous, J-J lin. wide, with scattered long extremely fine hairs, 
angles marginate, scaberulous, internodes 2-1J lin. long ; pedicels 
2-nate, filiform, angular to subangular, scaberulous, unequal, the 
longer up to 1 lin. long. Spikelets loosely appressed, oblong to 
elliptic-oblong, acute, 1 lin. long, pale, almost glabrous. Lower 
glume membranous or subhyaline, truncate, embracing the spikelet 
like a cuff, lin. long ; upper as long and as broad as the spike- 
let, firmly membranous, more or less prominently 5-nerved, glabrous 
or with a narrow marginal fringe of hairs, hairs fine, slightly curled 
