206 
clvii. graminejb (Stapf). [Schizachyrium . 
kneed, reddish, glabrous. Pedicelled spikelets muticous. — ‘Hack, 
in DC. Monogr. Phan. vi. 366 ; Durand & Schinz, Consp. PI. Afr. 
v. 728. 
Upper Guinea. Gold Coast (?), Tkonning. 
This is probably allied to Schizachyrium exile , Stapf, as suggested by Hacked, 
l.c., but the scanty branching, the laterally hairy sessile spikelets and muticous 
pedicelled spikelets distinguish it sufficiently. 
& 
40. DIECTOMIS, Kunth in Mem. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, ii. 69, and 
in Humb. & Bonpl. Nov. Gen. et Spec. i. 193, t. 64 ; not of Beauv. 
Spikelets 2-nate, of each pair differing in sex and shape, one 
sessile, the other pedicelled on the articulate fragile rhachis of many- 
jointed solitary racemes, terminating the culms and their branches, 
supported by a spathe and collected in a false subfastigiate panicle, 
the sessile spikelets falling with the contiguous joint and the accom- 
panying pedicelled spikelet ; joints and pedicels slender, cuneately 
widened upwards, tips with a small 2-dentate appendage. Florets 
2 ; the lower reduced to an empty valve ; upper $ in the sessile, 
neuter in the pedicelled spikelet. Sessile spikelet laterally com- 
pressed, wedged in between joint and pedicel, awned ; callus short, 
shortly bearded. Glumes subequal ; lower deeply sulcate and 
strongly 2-keeled, membranous in the groove, firmer towards the 
keels ; upper firmly membranous, boat-shaped, broad when seen from 
the side, 2-dentate, keeled, with a fine bristle from the sinus, 3-nerved, 
ciliate. Valves hyaline, ciliolate, of lower floret entire, 2-nerved, 
of upper 2-dentate, awned, awn from the sinus, perfect. Valvule 
hyaline, nerveless. Stamens 3. Stigmas exserted laterally low 
down. Grain obovate-oblong, laterally compressed ; embryo about 
half the length of the grain. Pedicelled spikelets very dissimilar, 
more acute. Glumes very unequal ; lower large, flat, herbaceous, 
many-nerved, aristulate from between 2 terminal mucros ; upper 
shallowly boat-shaped, entire, shortly aristulate, 3-nerved, ciliolate. 
Valves very narrow, 3-nerved, muticous.— Annual. Leaf-blades 
very narrow, flat, rather flaccid. False panicles rather loose ; their 
peduncles flexuous or nodding, filiform ; pedicelled spikelets often 
purplish or reddish, contrasting strikingly with the usually long 
whitish hairs of the joints and pedicels. 
Species 1, in the tropics of both hemispheres. 
The name Diectomis appears for the first time in Palisot de Beauvois (Essai 
crime Agrostographie, 132), but the description £iven under that name and the 
figure quoted (t. xxiii. fig. v.) are those of Apluda , whilst under -Apluda a grass 
is described which from the description and the figure cited (t. xxiii. fig. vi.) is 
an Anadelphia as Hackel (in DC. Monogr. Phan. vi. 396) has already suggested. 
According to him this was corrected in a supplementum “ errorum,” which I 
have not seen, in the sense that fig. vi. of plate xxiii. should illustrate the genus 
Diectomis. But even admitting this correction there is so much inexplicable 
