CLVII. GRAMINEiE (Stapf). 
ir 
50 
[Thyrsia. 
-similar to the sessile spikelet, down to 2 very minute glumes or 
only a single one. 
South. Central. Belgian Congo : Katanga ; Chisangwe, in dry bush, Romble, 
34 ! Elizabethville, Homhle, 51 ! 
A similar plant, but with a more compound inflorescence and numerous 
racemes and spikelets 2-3 lin. long, was collected by Whyte in the Nyika Mts., 
N. Nyasaland, at 4000-6000 ft. The inflorescences are incomplete and there 
are no leaves with them. 
(g 
2. T. huillensis, Stapf. Perennial from a slender hard rhizome, 
marked with annuliform rings (the scars of the cataphylls and leaf- 
bases), innovations extravaginal, covered with firm compressed 
short cataphylls. Culms erect, up to over ©ft. high, compressed 
below, 2-noded, glabrous, smooth. Leaf-sheaths glabrous, apart 
from the ciliate upper margins and the sometimes silky nodes, 
the basal compressed, keeled and more or less persistent : ligules 
very short, membranous, densely ciliate; blades • lanceolate-linear, 
shortly acute or subacute, 1 j-lj ft. long, up to 3 lin. wide, folded or 
flattened out, apparently somewhat succulent, glabrous, smooth 
except near the tips, midrib slender, forming a keel below, primary 
lateral nerves about 4 on each side. Racemes 4, in 2 pairs, each 
borne on a glabrous smooth peduncle, not quite 1J lin. long ; 
joints 1J lin. long, subclavate, slightly curved, somewhat convex 
on the back and upper part, slightly hollowed out on the face, 
quite glabrous, minutely granular, 3-nerved apart from the 
margins ; pedicels stoutly clavate, much contracted towards the 
base, shorter than the joints and subcontiguous with them. 
Sessile spikelet including the very short callus, 2 lin. long, oblong. 
Glumes equal ; lower coriaceous along the keels, otherwise chart- 
aceous, obtuse, with narrow inflexed margins and distinct acute 
keels, eciliolate, glabrous, minutely granular, intracarinal nerves 
few, with some transverse veins above ; upper glume boat-shaped, 
thinly chartaceous to membranous, semiovate in profile, with a 
minutely scabrid keel and a sub marginal nerve on each side. Lower 
floret 1J lin. long : valve hyaline, oblong, subobtuse, 2-nerved, 
eciliolate. Upper floret as long as the lower : valve oblong, minutely 
2-dentate, with a microscopic mucro from the notch, 3-nerved, 
eciliolate ; valvule similar, 2-nerved. Pedicelled spikelet similar 
to the sessile, but both glumes coriaceous, the lower sometimes with 
an eccentric keel. Upper floret <$; — Rotiboellia huillensis , Rendle 
in Cat. Afr. PL Welw. ii. 140. 
Lower Guinea. Angola: Huilla ; Mumpulla, Welwitsch, 2648 ! 
11. JARDINEA, Steud. in Flora, 1850, 229 (name) ; Syn. PI. 
Glum. i. 360. 
Spikelets 2-nate on the more or less fragile articulate rhachis of 
racemosely arranged simple or partly compound, often very numerous 
C ; 
\ \ :’ n/ * 
