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clvii. gramine^e (Stapf). [Hypoggnium. 
jointed solitary spatheate scattered or panicled and crowded 
racemes ; joints and pedicels filiform, disarticulating subobliquely ; 
spikelets deciduous, the sessile with the adjacent joint and pedicel. 
Florets 2, the lower reduced to an empty valve, the upper 9 with 
minute staminodes in the sessile, $ in the pedicelled spikelets. 
Sessile spikelet dors ally compressed ; callus small, glabrous on the 
back, scantily hairy or minutely bearded on the sides and the face. 
Glumes equal, chartaceous ; lower 2-keeled with narrow indexed 
margins very delicately or obscurely nerved apart from the keels ; 
upper boat-shaped, 1-3-nerved, acutely keeled. Valves hyaline, of 
about equal size, of lower floret delicately 2-nerved, of upper floret 
1 - nerved, muticous or mucronulate. Valvule of upper floret hyaline, 
nerveless, about the length of the ovary. Staminodes 3, with capil- 
lary filaments and very minute globose barren anthers. Stigmas 
exserted laterally at or above the middle of the spikelet, longer than 
the styles. Grain unknown. Pedicelled spikelet : Glumes more- 
nerved and valves only slightly shorter than in the sessile spikelets. 
Stamens 3 ; anthers linear, perfect. — Perennial, densely tufted grasses, 
with wiry stems and hard leaf -blades. Racemes gathered in often 
decompound much contracted panicles or scattered over the culm, 
terminal and lateral on solitary branches from the distant inter- 
mediate and upper leaf -axils, glabrous or nearly so. Spikelets small. 
Species 2 , 1 in tropical America and West Africa, the other in South Africa. 
1. H. spathiflorum, Nees, Agrost. Bras. 366. Culms in dense tufts 
with intravaginal innovations, up to 3 ft. high, erect, wiry, terete, 
glabrous, simple below, much branched above, branches solitary or 
2- nate, appressed to the culm, much divided, branchlets more or less 
imbricate, those of the last order bearing a solitary short raceme, 
all the ramifications supported by narrow spathes and the whole 
gathered into a contracted more or less dense panicle. Lower leaf- 
sheaths more or less compressed and keeled, hard, striate, glabrous, 
their bases long-persistent, upper terete, tight ; ligules very short, 
s carious, rounded, glabrous ; blades linear, acute or subacute, pass- 
ing imperceptibly into the sheath, the lowest up to over 1| ft. long, 
when unfolded 1-2 lin. wide, folded or flat, firm (particularly upwards) 
and often very rigid, glabrous, rarely ciliate towards the base, smooth, 
glaucous above, midrib slender, lateral nerves fine, close, often incon- 
spicuous. Panicle narrow, interrupted, often over 1 ft. long, leafy, 
the leaves with short very narrow blades ; spathes s carious, reddish, 
the primary from over ^2 J in. long, decreasing upwards, the longest 
with short subulate blades, those supporting the racemes about 6-3 
lin. long, all narrow, acute ; peduncles finely filiform, puberulous, 
about half as long as the supporting spathe and enclosed in it. 
Racemes very slender, 6-3 lin. long, 7-3- jointed ; joints J— J lin. 
long, scaberulous ; pedicels very similar, shorter. Spikelets linear- 
lanceolate to linear, lf-2 lin. long, acute, pale brown or greenish- 
