Panicum .] 
CLVII. GRAMINEiE (Stapf). 
651 
primary branches irregularly scattered or approximate in pairs, 
suberect or more or less spreading, the lowest up to 3-4 in. long, 
filiform, scaberulous, divided from low down or from the very base, 
the branchlets more or less secund, representing short dense down- 
wards sometimes compound racemes ; pedicels with discoid tips and 
usually with 1-3 fine long hairs below them, the lateral very short, 
the longer up to 1 lin. long. Spikelets rather crowded, ovate-oblong, 
acute to subacuminate, 1J lin. long, glabrous, glaucous or sometimes 
tinged with purple. Glumes very different ; lower minute, truncate 
or qpiculate, hyaline, white or purple ; upper membranous, oblong, 
acute to subacuminate, faintly 5-nerved, the tips or the back often 
purple. Lower floret usually ; valve very similar to the upper 
glume and of equal size ; valvule as long as the valve, oblong ; 
anthers \ lin. long. Upper floret fcjS, oblong, obtuse or minutely 
apiculate, J lin. long, dull, whitish, very finely pitted ; valve and 
valvule thinly crustaceous. — Steud. Syn. PI. Glum. i. 61 ; Durand & 
Schinz, Consp. FI. Afr. v. 754 ; Schweinf. in Bull. Herb. Boiss. ii. 
App. ii. 21 ; Stapf in Dyer, FI. Cap. vii. 406. P. mite , Steud. l.c. 
68 ; Durand & Schinz, l.c. 755. P. schimper ianum, Hochst. ex A. — ^ ' 
Rich. Tent. FI. Abyss, ii. 371 ; Steud. l.c. 68 ; Schweinf. Beitr. FI. 0"! - 
Aethiop. 301. -U*k 
Nile Land. Sudan : Egedh (between Berber and Khartum), Schweinf urth, 
532 ! Cordofan ; without precise locality, KotscTiy, 442 ! Blue Nile ; near Singa, 
Broun , 807 ! Zamarka, Broun, 042 ! Bahr el Gebel ; near Bor, Broun, 019 ! 
Abyssinia : Shire, Quartin Dillon, and without precise locality, Schimper, 1853 ! 
British East Africa : in grassy plains and salt marshes near the shore at 
Nakonumbi, Gregory ! Tana plains, near Ngatana, Gregory ! 
Also in Yemen and in Natal. 
Panicum umbratile, Mez in Engl. Jahrb. xxxiv. 142, described from a specimen 
collected by Schimper in Abyssinia (no. 1554) apparently belongs to this species, 
although the author does not mention the characteristic minute mucro of the 
fertile floret. The position of P. meyerianum in Panicum is somewhat irregular. 
It may be considered as a connecting link between it and Eriochloa, with which 
it has much in common ; but the globose swelling of the basal internode of the 
spikelet of Eriochloa is only slightly indicated, and the first glume reduced in 
the latter genus to an obsolete rim is well developed although small. 
■3. P. deustum, Thunb. Prodr. i. 19. Perennial, up to 4 ft. fligb, 
tufted on a short rhizome covered with the appressedly hairy 
remainders of cataphylls ; innovations intra- or extra- vaginal. 
Culms erect or geniculately ascending, slender or more or less stout 
(to 2 lin. diam.), up to 9-noded, simple or more or less branched, 
with the branches long and erect, terete, glabrous or more or less 
pubescent or hirsute below the nodes, sheathed almost all along or 
the upper internodes exserted. Leaves glabrous or sparingly (rarely 
densely) hirsute with tubercle-based hairs ; sheaths rather firm, of 
strong branched specimens almost coriaceous, terete, striate, finely 
pubescent or quite glabrous at the nodes ; ligule reduced to a narrow 
membranous ciliate rim ; blades linear to lanceolate-linear from a 
