Hyparrhenia .] clvii. gramine^e (Stapf). 323 
short firm cataphylls or their fibrous remains : innovations mostly 
extravaginal. Culms erect, slender, glabrous, 4-5-noded below the 
panicle, branched from the lower nodes, very rarely simple, the 
lowest branches barren, the following mixed. Leaf -sheaths tight, 
terete, or the lower keeled upwards, glabrous and smooth, very 
rarely sparingly hairy ; ligules up to | lin. long, truncate, scarious ; 
blades narrowly linear from an equally wide base, tapering upwards 
to a long fine point, up to over 1 ft. by £-2 (rarely 3) lin., rather firm, 
flat, or with revolute margins, glabrous and smooth except upwards 
and along the scaberulous margins, or slightly bearded at the very 
base, or more or less hairy to hirsute. Spatheate panicle very 
narrow, contracted, 1-3 ft. long, of 4-6 or in very robust specimens 
up to over 8 distant or upwards approximate tiers ; primary 
tiers few-rayed, mostly mixed, or the uppermost sometimes up 
to 8-rayed and then more or less fan-shaped; compound rays 
often very long and up to 5-noded, bearing secondary and 
occasionally tertiary tiers, ultimate rays £-1 in. long, finely fili- 
form ; lower subtending leaves like the preceding ones, the follow- 
ing spathaceous with reduced narrow blades, the upper spatheoloid, 
up to 3 in. long. Spatheoles very narrowly linear, tapering to a 
setaceous point up to over 2 in. long, scarious, reddish, glabrous, 
finally tightly inrolled ; peduncles very finely filiform, slightly 
scaberulous upwards, usually with very fine white hairs up to 2 lin. 
long, at length straight and slightly shorter than or equalling or 
exceeding the spatheoles by 1J-1 in., in extreme cases up to 3J in. 
long. Racemes subparallel, 5-7 lin. long, 2-awned per pair, green- 
ish or tinged with dark purple, the lower subsessile, the upper with 
a very finely filiform base 2 J-4 lin. long, glabrous or minutely puber- 
ulous above the homogamous spikelets, bases disarticulating very 
obliquely and their tips subsubulate. Terminal pedicels finely 
filiform, shortly ciliolate, not much over 1 lin. long, those of the 
homogamous pair shorter, sparingly hairy or glabrous. Homo- 
gamous pairs of spikelets 1 at the base of the lower, 2, somewhat 
distant, at the base of the upper raceme. Fertile spikelets linear- 
oblong, dorsally flattened and rounded on the sides, including the 
callus 3-4 lin. long, glabrous or sparingly hairy, pale with reddish 
tips ; callus slender, acute, up to 1 lin. long, bearded with white hairs. 
Glumes equal, thinly chartaceous, lower 2-denticulate, 9-nerved, 
the inner nerves more or less raised on the back, particularly towards 
the tips, margins very narrowly involute, inflexed in the upper 
quarter, keels very fine, scaberulous ; upper glume oblong, deltoid- 
acute, 3-nerved, ciliolate upwards. Lower floret reduced to a 
linear-oblong obtuse reversedly ciliate hyaline valve. Upper 
floret ^ : valve stipitiform, with 2 small hyaline teeth, awn about 
2 in. long, slender, column fulvously hairy, hairs up to 1 lin. long ; 
valvule 0. Ped'icelled spikelets linear-lanceolate, 3 (rarely 3J) 
lin. long, glabrous or sparingly hairy ; lower glume produced into 
