292 
clvii. graminea: (Stapf). [Hyparrhenia. 
or ciliolate or that of the upper floret glabrous, of lower floret 
hyaline, 2-nerved (often very faintly), rarely quite nerveless, of 
upper stipitiform with a very fine delicate base, above it gradually 
hardened with narrow' hyaline margins which usually run out into 
minute teeth, passing between the teeth into the mostly distinctly 
kneed more or less hirteflous or subplumose aw r n. Yalvule 0, rarely 
a small hyaline scale. Lodicules 2, minute, glabrous. Stamens 3. 
Stigmas laterally exserted ; styles terminal. Grain oblong in out- 
line, subterete to plano-convex in cross section ; embryo about half 
the length of the grain. Pedicelled spikelets acute, often mucronate 
or aristulate from the lower glume, usually somewhat longer than the 
fertile and more distinctly 2-keeled (often from below the middle). 
Valves of both florets developed, even in neuter spikelets, rarely 
the upper or both suppressed. — Perennial or annual mostly coarse 
grasses with often large loose rarely much contracted panicles, never 
aromatic. — Andropogon, Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 1133, partly. 
Species over 60, almost confined to tropical Africa (including the islands) 
and subtropical South Africa, 3 of them extending to tropical America, 1 to 
Asia and Australia, and 1 to the Mediterranean countries and temperate South 
Africa. 
It has been found impracticable in the elaboration of the key to use the presence 
or absence of homogamous pairs of spikelets and their number as a leading 
character throughout. Whilst stable in certain groups, these conditions are 
not so in others, particularly in the section Eu- Hyparrhenia. Moreover, 
the sexual character of the sessile spikelet is not readily established if the awn 
be absent, as the latter frequently becomes detached in handling the specimen 
during collection or preparation. In this case the spikelet must be dissected 
or young racemes still enclosed in their spatheole examined. The readiness 
with which the awns fall out of the spikelets also renders the determina- 
tion of the number of awned (fertile) spikelets contained in a raceme 
somewhat uncertain. This difficulty can be overcome if the total number 
of awns of a raceme-pair just emerging from the spatheole be counted. 
For this reason the expression “racemes . . . w-awned per pair ” has 
been introduced into the key and the descriptions, it being understood 
that the number of awned (fertile) spikelets per single raceme is ^ in the case of 
even, and | + i or ^ | in the case of odd numbers. The dimensions given in 
the key and the descriptions are, unless mentioned otherwise, meant to cover 
values of greatest frequency rather than of average, and therefore exclude 
extreme cases, especially those due to the partial arrest of. development 
not uncommonly observed in the latest members of more compound in- 
florescences. 
Key to the Sections. 
K\QA 
♦Lower glume of fertile spikelets unpitted. 
fRaceme-bases unequal to very unequal, that of the 
lower raceme usually very short (the raceme 
therefore subsessile or sessile), the upper 1-5 lin. 
long, filiform, slender, glabrous or pubescent, 
rarely with long fine soft hairs, except in 5, 
H. altissima , where it is scantily bearded with 
stiff tubercle-based hairs. 
