288 SINGLE FLORETS ON ROOTSTOCK OF CATANANCHE LUTEA. 
narrow,nearly equal. Flowering-glume shortly stipitate, entire ; 
awn 4” long, articulated on the glume. Palea less than half as 
long as the glume. The habit is that of Microlena polynoda ; but 
the plant is much larger. 
STIPA sETACEA, R. Br.—S. Petriei, Buchanan, Manual of Indi- 
genous Grasses of N. Z. p. 171, pl. xvii". f. 2.—Mr. Buchanan’s 
Stipa Petriei must be referred to this species, which has a wide 
distribution in Australia. None of the specimens kindly sent me 
by Mr. Petrie have the outer glumes so unequal as represented 
in Mr. Buchanan's plate. 
DavALLIA DUBIA, R. Br.—In vol. xii. of * Transactions of the 
New-Zealand Institute this fern is recorded by Mr. Armstrong, 
jun., as a native of New Zealand, but erroneously, as it has not 
been observed in the colony. Specimens of Hypolepis millafolium 
with the pinnules less divided than usual appear to have been 
mistaken for it. 
On the Occurrence of Single Florets on the Eege of 
Catananche lutea. By B. Darvon Jackson, Sec. L.S. 
~ 
[Read May 4, 1882.] 
Iw a letter which M. Battandier, of Mustapha in Algeria, sent to 
the President last spring, he enclosed a specimen of Catananche 
lutea, to show that this Composita, in addition to its normal ligu- 
late florets in the capitulum, produces also florets which are 
almost entirely concealed amongst the scales of the rootstock at 
the base of the plant. They are not cleistogamic ; and the fruits 
resulting are twice the size of the normal achenia in the capitula. 
The individuals being often cut when making hay, or browsed 
close by cattle, these hidden florets are of signal service, by re- 
producing the plant when the usual method is frustrated. 
Since the receipt of M. Battandier’s letter, I have examined 
the whole of the specimens in the Kew and British Museum her- 
baria ; and have found these florets constantly present, mostly in 
great abundance in this species, but have not detected them in 
the remaining species of this small genus. So constantly are 
they to be found, that they may be taken as the most obvious 
character of the species in the dried state. The accompanying 
figure shows the base of a specimen—a, a being two of these florets 
protruding their styles, with the stigmata yet unexpanded; ¢ 
shows a floret less advanced; b is a floret apparently inter- 
