Digitaria .] clvii. gramtne.® (Stapf.) 469 
37. D. longiflora, Pers. Syn. i. 85. Annual. Culms usually rising 
in fascicles from a long prostrate rooting base and its numerous 
nodes, often geniculate and branched below, glabrous, rarely shortly 
plumose towards the inflorescence, slender to very slender, the 
ultimate lateral flowering branches 4-5-noded, the first internodes 
very short and sheathed more or less all along, the uppermost long- 
exserted. Leaf -sheaths rather tight except when enclosing a branch, 
glabrous or more rarely the lower more or less hairy and sparingly 
bearded at the nodes ; ligules very short, membranous ; blades 
lanceolate to linear, acute, J-4 in. by 1-2 lin., often spreading, flat, 
soft, glabrous or with a few fine sometimes tubercle-based hairs here 
and there, rarely hairy all over, nervation very faint. Racemes 
usually 2 or 3, rarely more, sessile, digitate, very slender, 1-3 in. long, 
erect or spreading, pale green in flower ; rhachis flat, straight, J lin. 
wide, pale green, margins soabrid, midrib whitish, convex and smooth 
on both sides, wider on the back than on the face ; pedicels 2-3- 
nate, flexuous, terete with discoid tips, whitish, smooth, the longest 
up to 1 lin. long, adnate downwards. Spikelets appressed, sub- 
imbricate, elliptic-oblong, acute or subacute, f-f lin. long, pale green 
or whitish owing to the delicate appressed pubescence. Lower 
glume 0 or represented by the most rudimentary traces of a delicate 
membrane ; upper delicate, broad-oblong, subobtuse or subacute, 
as long as or almost as long as the spikelet, 5-3-nerved with dense 
lines of appressed very fine upwards wrinkled thin-walled hairs 
7 lin. long between the nerves and along the margin. Lower 
floret : valve hyaline, of the shape and size of the spikelet, 7-nerved, 
nerves very fine, equidistant, usually obscure owing to the appressed 
pubescence which consists of lines of hairs like those of the upper 
glume, occupying the margin and the spaces between the nerves 
except the innermost ; valvule and lodicules microscopic. Upper 
floret equalling the spikelet, shortly acute or subapiculate, slate- 
colour to olive-green when ripe, thinly chartaceous, margins of valve 
slightly overlapping to low down. Anthers J lin. long. Grain 
ellipsoid, slightly compressed, § lin. by J lin., white ; scutellum 
broad-elliptic, obscurely marked off, less than half the length of 
the grain. — Rendle in Cat. Afr. Pl. Welw. ii. 162. D. Pseudo-Durva, 
Schlechtend. in Linnsea, xxvi. 458. I), linearis , Schult. f. Mant. ii. 
264 ; not of Roem. & Schult. D. tenuiflora, Stapf in Dyer, FI. Cap. 
vii. 380 ; not of P. Beauv. Pasfalum longiflorum, Retz. Obs. iv. 15 ; 
Baker, FI. Maurit. 431 ; Durand & Schinz, Consp. FI. Afr. v. 737 ; 
Etudes FI. Congo, 320 Durand & De Wild. Mat. FI. Congo, i. 44 ; 
Th. & Hel. Durand, Syll. FI. Congol. 629 ; Hook. f. FI. Brit. Ind. vii. 17 
(partly). P. brevifolium, Fluegge, Gram. Monogr. 150 ; Kunth, 
Enum. i. 48. P. parvulum, Trim Pan. Gen. 117, and in Mem. Acad. 
Petersb. 6me ser. iii. (1835) 305 ; Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. i. 41. P. 
Pseudo-Durva , Nees, FI. Afr. Austr. 21 ; Steud, l.c. 41. Panicum 
argyrotrichum,, Durand & Schinz, Consp. FI. Afr. v. 741, and iStudes 
