544 
CLVII. GKAMINE.® (Stapf). 
\Brachiaria. 
i. 93; Steud. l.c. 67 ; Durand & Schinz, Consp. FI. Afr. v. 741 ; 
Hack, in Bolet. Soc. Brot. iii. (1884) 135 (pubescent state). P. Peti- 
veri, Trim Diss. ii. (Gram. Pan.) 144 (partly) ; Pan. Gen. 171, and 
Sp. Gram. Ic. t. 176 A, B; Nees, Agrost. Bras. 111? Kunth, 
Enum. i. 91 ; Steud. l.c. 68 ; Baker, FI. Maurit. 434 (pubescent state). 
P. brachylachnum , Steud. l.c. 62. P. cognolissimum , Steud. l.c. 69 ; 
Durand & Schinz, l.c. 742. P. patens, Boj. Hurt. Maur. 365, not of 
Linn., and P. pygmceum, Boj. l.c. (pubescent states). 
Upper G-uiuea. Cape Vercl Islands : St. Vincent, Cunningham ! St. Jago; 
Os Orgaos, Lowe ! Chao cb Falcao, Lowe ! and without precise locality, Wilkes' 
Expedition,^ ! Fogo ; Sta Filippe, Lowe ! Brava, near the Port, Lowe ! 
Senegal : Richard Toll and Dakka, Roger, 34 ! and without precise locality, 
Royer, xvii. partly ! Leprieur ! Heudeloi, 297 ! Perrotlet, 902 ! Portuguese 
Guinea : Bolama, Carvalho ! 
This occurs in a glabrous and a pubescent state. The original specimen in 
Linnaeus’ herbarium represents the former. The pubescence, if present, extends 
generally to the culms, the leaves, the axes of the inflorescences and the spike- 
lets, the upper glume and lower valve. On the blades it may be scanty and 
disappear with age. It does not seem to be correlated with any other character 
and the area of the glabrous and pubescent states overlap completely, in fact 
both have been taken in the same collecting. A curious modification in which 
the lower valve is more firmly membranous to ciustaceous and faintly trans- 
versely rugose and thus more or less resembles the upper (fertile) valve — not the 
upper glume as is normally the case — has been collected in West Africa as well 
as in India. In that case it is always glabrous and accompanied by a valvule 
of the reduced kind found normally in the lower floret. Another abnormality 
is exhibited by specimens collected by Lowe in St. Jago, Cape Verd Islands 
(glabrous state), and by C. B. Clarke, who described it as a distinct species, 
P. supervacuum, in Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. xxiv. 407, in Bengal (pubescent 
state). In these a second barren floret is intercalated between the normal 
barren and the fertile floret ; it is like the former in shape, but intermediate 
in substance between its neighbours. Owing to this addition the orientation 
of the fertile floret is that of the lower glume. 
34. B. regularis^ Stapf. Annual, rarely muck over 1J ft. high. 
Culms fascicled, slender, erect or suberect, more rarely ascending 
from a geniculate base, terete, rarely more than 4-noded, branched, 
with the branches suberect and leafy, but at length all flowering, 
finely pubescent, at least towards the panicle. Leaf-sheaths some- 
what firm, striate, very pale, delicately pubescent all over or at least 
upwards ; ligules a fringe of short stiff hairs ; blades linear to sub- 
lanceolate-linear from a rounded rarely clasping base, long-tapering 
to a slender point, from less than 2 to 6 (rarely over 8) in. by 2-6 
(rarely 8) lin., flat, subflaccid, often glaucous, finely pubescent, 
margins scabrid, primary lateral nerves 4-6 on each side with 
numerous very fine secondary ones between them, midrib slender. 
Panicle at length more or less exserted, oblong to broad-ovate in 
outline, 4-6 in. by 3-5 in., sometimes much reduced, of 5 to many 
solitary or subgeminate at length much spreading or horizontal very 
lax racemes ; common axis angular, slightly channelled on the 
adaxillary side, terminating with a spikelet, finely scabrid along the 
angles and sometimes spreadingly hairy besides ; racemes slender, 
