334 AUSTRALIAN PLANTS. 



glabrous ; leaves flat, ou the keel and margins scabrous ; cyme termi- 

 nal, many times compound, little shorter than the three or five bracts 

 of the involucre ; spikelets ovate-oblong, partially solitary-stalked, par- 

 tially glomerate ; bracteoles somewhat keeled, lanceolate-ovate, awnless, 

 naked on the margin, blackish-green and somewhat scabrous at the 

 back ; style trifid ; caryopsis roundish-ovate, plano-convex, slightly an- 

 gulate at the back, short-mucronate, pallid, even; the hypogynous 

 bristles at the top puberulous, variously curved, much longer than the 

 fruit. 



Hab. Along the rivulets and streams of the lower part of the Aus- 

 tralian Alps ; for instance, at Mount Leinster, Omeo, and Gibbo Creek, 

 Snowy Eiver, etc. 



Spikelets of the size of Scirpus radicans, between which species and 

 S. silvaficus it seems intermediate. 



I add here the only new species of Scirpus with which I am acquainted, 

 although not alpine. 



176. Scirpus leptocarpus, F. Muell. ; dwarf, annual; root fibrous; 

 stems numerous, slender, angulate, streaked, ouc-leaved at the base ; 

 spikelets one to three, spuriously lateral, ovate, sessile, many-flowered; 

 one bract of the involucre elongate, erect, at last horizontal ; the other 

 of the length of the spikelet ; bracteoles oblong, acuminate, slightly 

 recurved at the apex, straw-yellow, with brownish margin and green 

 keel; style trifid; caryopsis trigono-cylindrical, finely dotted ; hypogy- 

 nous bristles wliite, slightly scabrous. 



Hab. On moist or sometimes inundated localities on the Murray, 

 Ovens, and King Kiver. 



177. GviXGyi polyantla, P. Muell. ; tall; leaves broad-linear, nearly 

 flat, keeled, with the erect triquetrous stem a little scabrous ; male 

 spikes four or five, elongate-cylindrical, the lowest ramified by several 

 short ones ; female spikes three to five, very long, cylindrical, the lowest 

 long-pedunculate, with remote flowers at the base ; lower bracts very 

 long, foliaceous, auriculate but not vaginate at the base ; stigmas two ; 

 frait brown, ovate, sessile, glabrous, dotted, on both sides convex and 

 distinctly streaked, abruptly terminated into a very short, bidentate 

 beak, as long as the lanceolate-subulate, black bracteoles ; carj^opsis 

 compressed, round-ovate, straw-yellow, shining, even. 



Hab. In the valleys of the Upper Mitta-Mitta, near Mount Hotham. 

 More allied to Carex acuta and paludosa than to any of the Austra- 

 lian, Antarctic, and New Zealand species. 



