Leucophrys.] clvii. gramine.® (Stapf). 
50B 
Species 2, in south-west Africa on both sides of the tropic of Capricorn. 
Perennial with branched hard almost woody stems. 
Spikelets up to 4 lin. long, in loose appressed racemes 
li-J in. long; glumes of equal length, corresponding 
to the size of the spikelet ; the upper glume with a 
transverse fringe and the lower valve with two 
separate tufts of hairs at the middle ... ... ... 1 . L.mesocoma. 
Annual. Spikelets 1§ lin. long, in dense distant or ap- 
proximate globose clusters or short false spikes ; lower 
glume half the length of the upper, hairs of the upper 
glume and lower valve not gathered into fringes or 
tufts 2. L. glomerata. 
1. L. mesocoma, Rendle in Cat. Afr. PI. Wehv. ii. 194. Culms 
loosely tufted, up to 2 ft. high, branched from the base, repeatedly 
geniculate, ascending or spreading, up to many-noded, terete, 
glabrous, glaucous, waxy below the nodes. Leaves glaucous ; 
sheaths rather loose, striate, thickened into a spongy ring at the 
nodes, often slipping from the stem and rolling in or breaking away, 
glabrous or the lowest finely pubescent ; blades linear, long-tapering 
to a callous, sometimes spinescent and recurved point, flat or more 
often involute, up to over 3 in. long, often much shorter, 1-2 J lin. 
wide, glabrous or finely and softly pubescent, midrib and primary 
lateral nerves about equally slender, the latter about 4 on each side. 
Panicle very narrow, 3-6 in. long ; common axis terete, fiexuous, 
glabrous; racemes 5-6, erect, almost appressed, the lowest often 
remote, 1J-J in. long, simple or the longest compound at and bearing 
spikelets from the base ; lower shorter than or as long as the inter- 
nodes, upper longer or much longer than they ; rhachis finely 
filiform, fiexuous, glabrous or sparingly hairy or pubescent towards 
the nodes; pedicels finely filiform with discoid tips, loosely and 
shortly hairy to almost glabrous, scaberulous, the lateral up to § lin. 
long, the terminal much longer. Spikelets including the stipe up 
to 4 lin. long, whitish ; stipe |-| lin. long. Lower glume sub- 
hyaline, white, silky-hairy at the base, glabrous upwards, ciliolate ; 
upper rostrate or subulate-acuminate, 5-7-nerved, with a transverse 
fringe of long hairs at the middle, pubescent and firmer below it, 
glabrous above it except for the short cilia of the margin. Lower 
floret : valve similar to the upper glume, but less acuminate, longi- 
tudinally depressed and subhyaline with two distinct tufts of long 
hairs at the middle, almost glabrous below them, ciliolate above ; 
valvule acute, keels scaberulous. Upper floret 1J lin. long, straw- 
coloured. Anthers 1 lin. long. — A. Chase in Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash, 
xxiv. 123. Panicum mesocomum, Nees, FI. Afr. Austr. 34 ; Steud. 
Syn. PI. Glum. i. 88 ; Durand & Schinz, Consp. FI. Afr. v. 754 ; 
Stapf in Dyer, FI. Cap. vii. 387. 
Lower Guinea. Angola : Mossamedes ; in gravelly soil of the River Bero, 
Welwitsch, 2295 ! 
Also in Namaqualand as far south as the Orange River, 
