530 clvii. gramineje (Stapf). [ Brackiaria . 
21. B. distachyoides, Stay/ Annual, 1-1J ft. high, the whole 
plant pale green or slightly glaucous and quite glabrous. Culms 
in small fascicles, erect or suberect or geniculately ascending to 
prostrate at the base, frequently rooting from the lowest nodes with 
rather stout root-fibres, terete or the lower internodes somewhat 
compressed, 4-6-noded, frequently branched, the upper branches 
developed as leaf -tufts' shortly emerging from the sheaths at the 
time of flowering of the main culms. Leaf-sheaths rather thin or 
the upper herbaceous, the lower more or less compressed and often 
slipping off the culm, shorter than the internodes, smooth ; ligules 
reduced to a dense line of hairs ; blades narrowly linear from an 
equally wide or slightly narrowed base, long-tapering to a slender 
point, 2-5 in. by 1-2 lin., the lowest usually short, flat, smooth, 
finely and closely nerved, with about 2-3 primary lateral nerves 
on each side ; midrib slender. Panicle at length shortly, if at all, 
exserted, of 4-2 solitary distant subsecund suberect or oblique 
spike-like racemes or reduced to a single raceme ; common axis 
rarely much over 3 in. long, slender, grooved to widely concave 
(upwards) on the adaxillary side, continued beyond the insertion 
of the uppermost raceme into a subulate or linear-subulate point, 
1-2J lin. long, smooth or scabrid along the margins of the upper- 
most internodes ; racemes slender, 1-1J in. long, straight or more 
or less arching, subsessile with a finely pubescent pulvinus or the 
lowest shortly peduncled, quite simple ; rhachis semi-involute or 
at length almost flat, subherbaceous, up to f lin. wide (flattened 
out), glabrous and smooth on the back, scaberulous along the 
margins and usually on the very slender slightly raised rounded 
midrib of the face ; pedicels solitary, f-lj lin. apart, reduced to 
scaberulous stumps with discoid tips. Spikelets more or less 
distinctly 1 -seriate and laterally contiguous, oblong, subacute, 
flattened on the back, l|-lf lin. long, glabrous, very pale greenish. 
Glumes very unequal ; lower broad-ovate, subacute or obtuse, 
half as long (or nearly so) as the spikelet, membranous, whitish, 
5-7-nerved with free nerve-ends ; upper corresponding in size and 
outline to the spikelet, thinly papery, 5- (rarely 7-) nerved, with 
faint transverse veins in the upper third or quarter, nerves greenish. 
Lower floret neuter : valve very similar to the upper glume, 5* 
nerved ; valvule narrowly oblong, obtuse, with smooth keels, 
almost as long as the valve or more or less (sometimes much) reduced. 
Upper floret elliptic-oblong, subacute, 1| lin. long ; valve and 
valvule crustaceous, finely transversely wrinkled, the former faintly 
5-nerved, the latter very finely keeled aud the flaps widened and 
almost contiguous at one-third from the base ; anthers J— J lin. 
long. Grain elliptic in outline, flat on both sides, 1 lin. by J lin., 
about — lin. thick, yellow' ; embryo-mark very indistinct. 
Upper Guinea. Lagos : Dawo du, 163 ! 
