48 
CLVII. GR AMINE iE (Stapf). 
[Urelytrum. 
but distinctly shorter, parallel to and somewhat distant from them. 
Sessile spikelets with an obscure callus and a transverse groove 
above it, linear-oblong, 21-8 lin. long. Lower glume chartaceous, 
subacute or acute, muticous, flat on the back, smooth or aculeolate 
along the sides, spinulously ciliate on the keels, glabrous, intra- 
carinal nerves 3 ; upper glume subequal to the lower, chartaceous, 
boat-shaped, broadly linear in profile, ' acute, glabrous, scabrid on 
the keel, 1-3-nerved. Lower floret : valve shorter than the glumes 
by J, oblong, subacute, with a similar valvule. Upper floret : valve 
and valvule similar to those of the lower floret, but the former 3- 
nerved. Anthers 1J lin. long. Pedicelled spikelet similar to the 
sessile, but with 2 8 florets and with or without a bristle-like awn 
from the lower glume. — Rhytachne gigantea, Stapf in Bull. Soc. Bot. 
Fr. Iv. (1908) Mem. viii. 99. 
Upper Guinea. Northern Nigeria : Abinsi, Dalziel, 902 ! 
Lower Guinea French Congo : Fort Possel on the Ubangi River, Chevalier, 
5303 ! Krebedje, Chevalier, 5410 ! 5451 ! Shari region ; between Fort Campel 
and Nana, Chevalier, 10686 ! 
South Central. Belgian Congo : Monbuttu ; by the Kussumbo River, 
Schweinfurth, 3589 ! 
Imperfectly known species. 
7. U. digitatum, K. Schum. in Engl. Pfl. Ost-Afr. C. 97. 
Culms over 3 ft. high. Leaf-sheaths glabrous ; ligules short, 
rounded, membranous, glabrous ; blades 4~4J lin. wide, prominently 
nerved, pubescent. Racemes usually .5, the lower paired, shortly 
peduncled. Lower glume of the sessile spikelet minutely hairy at 
the apex, otherwise not ciliate ; awn of the pedicelled spikelet 
squarrose, about 1 in. long. 
Mozambique Distr. German East Africa : Karagwe ; Kassasse, Stuhlmann, 
850, 3218; Bukoma; Itole, Stuhlmann, 929. 
10. THYRSIA, Stapf. 
Spikelets 2-nate, those of each pair very similar in shape or the 
pedicelled more or less reduced or quite rudimentary, different in sex 
(occasionally some homogamous in the same inflorescence), on the 
fragile articulate rhachis of racemosely arranged or panicled spike-like 
racemes ; joints and pedicels stout, posticously contiguous or almost 
so ; articulation at a right angle to the rhachis, ’tips hollowed out, not 
appendaged. Sessile spikelets : Florets 2, lower reduced to a barren 
valve, upper $ , awnless. Glumes equal, coriaceous or more or less 
chartaceous or the upper membranous, lower flat on the back, smooth, 
2-keeled, narrowly inflexed along the margins, muticous, upper 
boat-shaped, keeled. Valves hyaline, awnless, of lower floret 2-, of 
upper 3-nerved. Valvule of upper floret hyaline, 2-nerved ; lodi- 
cules 2, cuneate. Stamens 3. Stigmas laterally exserted. Grain 
oblong, dorsally compressed ; scutellum extending beyond the 
