154 clvii. gramine^e (Stapf). {Sorghum. 
Malinke, very nutritious and keeping well. Evidently a member 
of the guineense- group. 
Nionifi. Culms 12-15 ft. high. Leaf-blades 4-5 in. wide. Panicle 
erect, compact, with long rigid branches. Glumes rounded at the 
tips, usually black, tightly clasping the much exserted flattened 
grain which is white, tinged with red. A coarse gram which does 
not keep well, but an early and good yielder. 
29. CLEISTACHNE, Benth. in Hook. Ic. PI. xiv. 60, t. 1379. 
Spikelets solitary, all alike, $ , pedicelled on the tough rhachis of 
racemosely arranged or panicled racemes, falling entire from the 
thickened tips of the pedicels. Florets 2, lower reduced to an empty 
valve, upper $ . Glumes equal, very similar, with involute margins, 
more or less coriaceous, delicately 7-9-nerved, muticous. Valves 
hyaline, lower 2-nerved, upper 2-dentate or subentire, 3-nerved, 
with a twisted flexuous awn from the sinus or tip. Valvule very 
minute, ciliate. Lodicules 2, broad-cuneate, sparingly ciliate. 
Stamens 3. Stigmas laterally exserted, plumose. Grain oblong to 
obovoid-oblong, very obtuse to truncate ; embryo half the length of 
the grain. — Annual, rather coarse grasses. Leaf-blades long, flat, 
with stout midribs. Panicles narrow, more or less contracted, 
greyish or fulvously hairy. 
Species 3, in Tropical Africa and Western India. 
Branches of panicle divided, at least below ; panicle 
linear-oblong to oblong, greyish-pubescent; 
spikelets not quite 2^ lin. long ... ... ... 1. C. sorghoides. 
Branches of panicle simple ; panicle very narrow, 
brightly fulvous-pubescent ; spikelets 3 lin. long 2. C. macrantha. 
1. 0. sorghoides, Benth. in Hook. Ic. PI. xiv. 60, t. 1379. Annual. 
Culms up to 9 ft. high, sparingly branched from the base or simple (?), 
sometimes rooting from the lowest nodes, robust, glabrous. Leaf- 
sheaths terete, the lowest at length loose, otherwise tight, more or 
less hirsute from tubercles or glabrous, the lower prominently striate, 
glabrous at the nodes ; ligules firmly scarkqis, rounded, up to over 
1| lin. long, brown ; blades linear, tapering to a long fine point, very 
gradually narrowed towards the base and there narrower than the 
mouth of the sheath, J-3 ft. long and up to 4 lin. wide, flat, appres- 
sedly pubescent to hirsute with the hairs springing from tubercles, 
midrib stout downwards, rounded on the back, whitish, lateral 
nerves 4-6 on each side, fine, margins scabrid to spinulously ciliate. 
Panicle linear-oblong to oblong, up to 10 in. long and 1-14 in. wide, 
rather dense ; rhachis more or less grooved and scabrid to spinulously 
ciliate on the angles above or smooth below ; branches usually 2- 
nate, divided from the base, the longest up to 3 in. long, secondary 
