Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, Vol 10, page 1, (1937) Author: (By C. E. HUBBARD.)
Names
HELICTOTRICHON Mannii C. E. Hubbard ex Hutch. [family POACEAE], in Hutch. & Dalz. Fl. W. Trop. Afr. ii. 528 (1936), and in Kew Bulletin, 1936, 334.
Trisetum lachnanthum Hook. f. [family POACEAE], in Jour. Linn. Soc., Bot. vi. 23; Engl. Hochgebirgsfl. Trop Afr. 129, in part; not of Hochst.
Avena lachnantha Hook. f. [family ], in Journ. Linn. Soc., Bot. vii. 229 (1864), as to the specimens.
Avenastrum Mannii Pilger [family POACEAE], in Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Berlin, ix. 520 (1926).
Information
Perennial. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 4 ft. high, slender to moderately stout, simple, 4–7-noded, with the lower internodes short and the upper much-elongated, glabrous and smooth. Lowest leaf-sheaths thin, loosely pilose or glabrous, longer than the internodes, the remainder glabrous, smooth, striate, the upper at length shorter than the internodes; ligule truncate, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, lacerate; blade linear, acute, up to 1 ft. or more long, 1 1/2–5 lin. wide, flat, firm, green, sparsely hairy above or quite glabrous, more or less scaberulous, or smooth. Panicle narrow, 7–14 in. long, 1/2–1 in. wide, loose, straight or flexuous; rhachis slender, smooth below, scaberulous above; branches paired, erect, distant, filiform, loosely spiculate, scaberulous, the lower up to 4 in. long; lateral pedicels 3/4–1 lin. long, the terminal much longer. Spikelets narrowly oblong, appressed to the branches, 7–9 lin. long, green. Glumes acute, herbaceous, with hyaline margins, smooth, or scaberulous on the nerves; lower broadly lanceolate to ovate or ovate-elliptic, 1 3/4–2 1/2 lin. long, 1–3-nerved; upper broadly lanceolate-oblong to elliptic, 2 1/2–4 lin. long, 3–5-nerved. Florets 3–4, loose, the uppermost reduced; rhachilla-internodes 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, hairy above the middle with hairs 1/2– 3/4 lin. long; callus obtuse, up to 1/2 lin. long, densely bearded with hairs up to 1/2 lin. long. Valves long-exserted, oblong-lanceolate and acute in profile, the lower 3 1/2–4 1/2 lin. long, distinctly 7–9-nerved, with the nerves finely scaberulous towards the tip, firmly herbaceous, glabrous, minutely granular downwards, shortly 2-fid, with the lobes lanceolate and acute or each produced into a fine bristle up to 1 lin. long; awn geniculate, from the upper third of the valve, up to 8 lin. long; column pale brown, usually loosely twisted, 1 1/4–2 lin. long; bristle very fine. Valvules oblong-linear, 3 1/2–3 3/4 lin. long, rigidly ciliolate on the keels. Anthers 1 lin. long. Ovary densely hairy above the middle.
Distribution
Nigeria Upper Guinea Cameroons Mtn., above Musaka Camp, in grassland, 6000 ft., Maitland, 855! Jonjo Camp, in forest, 7000 ft., Maitland, 1338! 7000 ft., Dunlap, 43! 7000–9000 ft., Mann, 2020! 2089! Preuss, 717!Fernando Po Upper Guinea Clarence Peak, 7000–9000 ft., Mann, 657! 1476!
![HELICTOTRICHON Mannii C. E. Hubbard ex Hutch. [family POACEAE]](/fsi/img/misc/plants/static_thumbs/Flora_of_tropical_Africa_icon96.jpg)