580 
clvii. gramineje (Stapf). [Stenotajphrum . 
t. 39. S. americanum, Schrank, Plant. Ear. Hort. Monac. t. 98, fig. 8 ; 
Kunth, Enum. i. 138 ; Hack, in Bolet. Soc. Brot. v. 211 ; Blancliet, 
Cat. S.-O. France, 156 ; Hnsnot, Gram. 12 ; Cavara in Bull. Soc. Bot. 
Ital. 1904, 365. S. swartzianum, Nees, El. Afr. Austr. 62. S. sar- 
mentosum , Nees, Agrost. Bras. 93. S. dimidiatum, Durand & Schinz, 
Consp. El. Afr. v. 787 (partly) ; Franch. Contr. El. Congo Fran9. 56 ; 
Eiore, FI. Anal. Ital. iv. i. 13. S. dimidiatum, vars /3 and y, Brongn. 
Bot. Yoy. Coq. 127. S. dimidiatum, var. americanum , Hack, in Anal. 
Muse. Nac. Buenos Aires, xxi. 57. R. tri^sacoides , Lam. 111. i. 
205, t. 48, fig. 1 b. Ischcemum secundatum, Walt. FI. Carol. 249. 
Rottboellia dimidiata, Thunb. Prodr. 23, and El. Cap. ed. Schult. 
118; not of Linn. f. R. stolonifera, Poii. Encycl. vi. 310. R. com- 
jpressa, Beauv. Agrost. 176, t. xxi. fig. 8 ; not of Linn. f. 
Upper Guinea. Ivory Coast : on the shore near Tabou, Chevalier, 20055 ! 
Gold Coast ; shore near Haifa Assinie, Chijpp, 274 ! Southern Nigeria : Opobo, 
Jeffreys, 18 ! sandy banks of the Nun River, Barter, 1960 ! Cameroons : often 
forming the principal part of the “ beach tangle” near Ratanga, Bates, 38 ! 
St. Thomas Island : on the beach near S. Thome, Moller, 146 ! Princes Island, 
Mann, 529 ! 
Lower Guinea. Gaboon, Griffon du Bellay. Angola ; near Loanda, 
Gossweiler, 132 ! 
Also in South Africa from Cape Town to Natal, on the American shores of 
the Atlantic from S. Carolina to the La Plata and in the Pacific from Southern 
Mexico to Australia ; introduced into Southern Prance and Italy. 
The “ St. Augustine grass ” of the Americans ; an excellent pasture grass, also 
used for making coarse ^awns. 
2. S. dimidiatum, ^Brongn. Bot. Voy. Coq. 127 (excl. vars. ft & y). 
Perennial with a ratber slender branched closely noded knotty 
rhizome. Culms ascending from an often long trailing base which is 
rooting and branching from the numerous nodes, the branches either 
also trailing or more usually forming fan-shaped bunches of leaves 
which may remain barren or grow out into secondary few- (mostly 
l-2-)noded erect or shortly ascending secondary culms, rising from 
a few inches to over 1 ft. above the ground ; all the internodes, but 
particularly those of the base, strongly compressed, glabrous, smooth. 
Leaf-sheaths very much compressed, keeled, the lower pallid, soon 
diverging and more or less persistent, all glabrous or ciliate upwards, 
very rarely loosely hairy all over ; ligule a fringe of very short 
hairs ; blades folded in vernation, then flat, exactly linear from a 
shortly contracted base, with subobtuse or rounded tips, 1-5 (rarely 
to 7) in. by 2-6 lin., green, glabrous, scabrid along the margins 
towards the tip, otherwise smooth, midrib and the very close and 
numerous nerves very fine. False spikes solitary, terminal on the 
primary and secondary culms, rarely with an additional spike from 
the last sheath but one, 1J-5 (rarely more) in. long, borne on an 
ultimately long-exserted rather slender glabrous peduncle ; common 
axis glabrous, with a more or less wavy stout midrib, flat on the back 
and acutely keeled on the face, the lateral angles of its internodes, 
the intermediate of which are 2J-4 lin. long, alternately herbaceously 
