Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 6 (1802).djvu/73

i>f the Genus Ehrharla. 51 terior minor, teiierrlma, acutiufcula, diaphana, apicc fub- cUiata.

Tuberculum inter valv. inter, in hac fpecie deeft. Nectarium: Petala cuneiformia, retufa, integra, genitalia

ampleiSlentia, albida.

Filamenta 6, breviffima. Anthera lineares, minutSG, flavae,

apice pollen emittentes. Germen ovatunn. Styl'i duo, divergentes, glumis breviores.

Stigmata congeneriim, ulbida.

This kind is not less distinct in its flowers than in the rigidity of its branching culm, which, about the articulations, is almost ligneous. The panicles at the top of all the branches, being generally undivided, have more the appearance of racetni. The flowers somewhat resemble those of the Fejluca decuvibenSy and are quite bare, with a calyx as long as the coroUine valves, and frequently (not always) diftinguished by dark tips. Thunberg, probably induced by the outward refemblance of the flowers, made this species a Me- lica; but being in pofleflfion of another, though less perfect, specimen, (which he did not fuppofe to be the fame with his Melica ramofa,) and having in that found the flowers correfponding with the chara6ter of Ehrharta^ he again inferted it in the Prodr.JL Cap. under the appellation of JLbrharta dlgyna.

Thunberg met with this grafs in a valley difl:ant from the Cape, called by the Dutch Zoetemelki-valley.

4, EHRHARTA melicoides.

E. glumis corollinis exteiiorlbus glaberrimis obtufis, panicula paten-

tiflima. Melica Capctijis, corollis glabris muticis, panicula patentifllma, folirs

fubfiliformibus. Tbunb.prodr. Cap. p.zi. Spec, plant, ed. Wild.

Ha ' Descr.