742 
CL VII. GRAMINE2E (Stapf). 
[. Hemigymnia . 
Racemes or fascicles more or less distant, often irregularly so, or here 
and there approximate ; rhachis filiform ; pedicels finely filiform, 
short to as long as or (the terminal) longer than the spikelet. Spikelets 
usually approximate to subimbricate, glabrous or nearly so. 
Species 3-4, one in tropical Africa, the others in the Indo-Malayan region. 
Panicum nodosum, Kunth ( Hemigymnia multinodis, Stapf), together with 
P. canaliculatum, Nees ex Steud., forms a section “ Breviglumce ” in 
Hooker’s Flora of British India. The circumstance that the glumes of both 
species are of about equal length and at the same time so short that the 
greater part of the back of the fertile floret is exposed, might at the first 
glance suggest affinity, but neither the habit nor the structure of the spikelet 
— except for the character alluded to — supports that view. In fact P. canalicu- 
latum, “ a very peculiar species,” as Hooker calls it, finds its closest allies among 
the species of Setaria in which the “ bristle ” apparatus is reduced to a minimum, 
whilst P. nodosum and its congeners represent a small group of closely allied 
■species the affinity of which is not quite clear, but may perhaps be looked for in 
the neighbourhood of Ichnanthus and Pcecilostachys. There is some resemblance 
to Digitaria, but it is merely superficial. 
1. H. arnottiana A Stapf. Perennial, scrambling from an often 
decumbent rooting base, up to over 6 ft. high. Culms many-noded, 
much geniculate, branched below and here and there also upwards, 
terete, hard and more or less woody below, glabrous and very smooth ; 
internodes shorter or longer than the sheaths. Leaf-sheaths tight, 
rather firm, terete, finely striate, quite smooth and glabrous except 
along the upwards ciliolate margins (African specimens) or some- 
times hirsute with tubercle-based finally deciduous hairs, at length 
circumscissile at the base and deciduous ; ligule a very obscure 
membranous rim ; blades linear-lanceolate to lanceolate from a 
suddenly much constricted almost petioloid base and, finally dis- 
articulating there, acuminate with a subsetaceous point, 3-6 in. 
by 4J-10 lin. , flat, firmly papery, dark and often dull green, minutely 
puberulous at the constricted base, otherwise quite glabrous, rough 
near the tips, sharply serrulate-scabrid along the margins, midrib 
slender, prominent below, primary lateral nerves very slender, 
4-5 on each side with very faint oblique and sometimes meandering 
transverse veins and pellucid dots or striae (lacunae in the parenchyma). 
Panicle terminal, erect, slightly flexuous, more or less exserted from 
the uppermost sheath or its base enclosed in it, 5-9 in. long, con- 
tracted and subfastigiate or widely open ; common axis angular, 
smooth, lower internodes § to over 1J in. long, the following often 
irregularly decreasing ; primary branches frequently 2-nate to 
pseudoverticillate or, particularly upwards, solitary, erect or spread- 
ing at an angle of 60° or more, up to three-quarters the length of the 
panicle, filiform, angular, scabrid, divided from the base but with the 
lowest divisions often quite rudimentary, the next often remote 
(in large panicles up to 2 in. from the base), the following usually 
irregularly distant or approximate, representing short racemes or 
fascicles, rarely long and again branched. Racemes sessile, up to 
10-spiculate and over 3 lin. long, but mostly much shorter and often 
