582 
clvii. geamine^ (Stapf). [Stenotaphrum . 
Mozambique Distr. Zanzibar, Last ! Dowson, 120 ! Pemba Island, Doivson, 
120 ! Lyne, 112 ! Portuguese East Africa : Kongone Island, mouth of Zambesi, 
Kirk ! 
Also in Madagascar and the neighbouring islands of the Indian Ocean and 
in Ceylon and the Southern Deccan. 
This ought to be as useful for making lawns in the tropics and for fodder 
as 8. secundatum. In fact, its softer and greener foliage would seem to render 
it preferable. 
6fi. PASPALIDIUM, Stapf. 
Spikelets ovate to ovate-oblong or ovate-lanceolate (when seen in 
front view), awnless, convex to very convex on the back, flattened 
or slightly depressed on the face, turgid or dorsally moderately com- 
pressed, falling entire from the pedicels, solitary, secund and abaxial 
on the triquetrous sometimes herbaceously marginate rhachis of 
slender sessile spiciform racemes ; lower floret with a usually 
well-developed valvule, or reduced to the valve. Glumes mostly 
dissimilar and very unequal in length, the lower reduced to a small 
scale or up to (rarely over) half the length of the spikelet, upper 
mostly almost equalling the spikelet, 5-7-nerved with the nerves 
evenly distributed, rarely both glumes much reduced. Lower 
floret : valve similar to the upper glume with the inner side-nerves 
more distant ; valvnle if present only slightly shorter than the valve 
with well-developed indexed flaps. Upper floret : valve oblong to 
elliptic in outline, acute to apiculate, emucronate, crustaceous, with 
firm involute margins, faintly 5-nerved ; valvule almost as long as 
the valve, 2-keeled, its sides tightly embraced by the valve all along, 
of the same texture as the latter. Lodicules 2, small, broadly 
cuneate. Stamens 3. Styles distinct ; stigmas plumose, laterally 
exserted from the upper part of the spikelet. Grain tightly enclosed 
by the more or less hardened valve and valvule. — Perennial, semi- 
aquatic or terrestrial grasses ; blades linear, flat or involute, some- 
times obtuse ; ligules reduced to a ciliolate rim ; racemes sessile or 
subsessile and secund on the alternate notches of a triquetrous 
common axis of a false compound spike, rigid, appressed or sub- 
appressed to the more or less hollowed-out flanges of the latter, the 
lower frequently shorter than the adjacent internodes, the following 
equalling or exceeding them, but not very much longer ; rhachis ending 
in a subulate point ; spikelets mostly conspicuously 2-seriate and 
laterally contiguous or subcontiguous, nearly always quite glabrous. 
Species about 12 in the warm countries of both hemisnheres, but mostly in 
the Old World ; 6 confined to Australia and New Caledonia. 
Culms usually stout, more or less spongy, the prostrate 
bases copiously rooting from the nodes, sheaths and 
blades somewhat succulent ; rhachis of racemes | lin. 
wide, ciliolate ; spikelets very pale, 1 lin. long, with a 
small whitish truncate almost nerveless outer glume ; 
a hygrophytic grass 1. P. geminatum. 
Culms rather slender, firm, the prostrate bases trailing, not 
rooting ; sheaths and blades thin, but firm ; rhachis 
