18 Transactions. 



pars mascula brevissima ; glumae anguste lanceolatae acutae tenues pallide 

 virides, leviter 3-nerviae, a marginibus late scariosae, mox decidual. 

 Utriculi 5-6 mm. longiplano-convexi peranguste elliptici aenei politi, nervis 

 duobus baud conspicuis distantibus a latere convexo percursi ; rhacbeola 

 utriculum dimidio superans ; nux oblonga triquetra apice leviter annulata. 



Laxly tufted or spreading more or less freely by slender stolons. 

 Culms 12-20 cm. long, filiform, terete, strict, smooth, slightly grooved, 

 clothed for one-third their length by the sheathing leaf -bases, equalling or 

 exceeding the leaves. Leaves very narrow linear, flat or slightly folded, 

 thin and flaccid, smooth (the edges towards the tips only slightly scabrid), 

 long-sheathing hardly grooved, midrib evident below. Spikelets short and 

 few-flowered, + 1 cm. long including the bristles, and about h^f as wide ; 

 female flowers 3-4 (rarely more) ; male part very short, of 2-3 flowers ; 

 stamens 3, long. Glumes narrow-lanceolate, acute, thin, pale green, rather 

 faintly 3-nerved along the middle of the back, with broad scarious edges, 

 the lateral nerves vanishing below the apex, soon falling away from the 

 broad cupular expansions of the rhachis on which they are seated. Utricles 

 5-6 mm. long, very narrow elliptic, more or less plano-convex, greenish- 

 brown, polished, with two rather faint distant nerves near the edges of 

 the convex face, broadly stipitate below, very gradually narrowed above 

 into a long acute beak ; bristle 1\ times as long as the utricle. Nut 

 oblong, triquetrous, slightly annulate at the base of the style. 



Hah. — Open beech forest, Routeburn Valley, Lake County, at 2,300 ft. ; 

 End Peak, Lake Hauroto, J. Crosby Smith ! Clinton Valley, Lake Te Anau, 

 in open bush. 



Kiikenthal has made this plant a variety of U. feneUa R. Br. It is 

 easily distinguished from the latter by the following characters :^ the thin 

 flat flaccid long-sheathing leaves, the much longer culms, and the greatly 

 longer and narrower plano-convex greenish-brown polished utricles. The 

 length of the utricle of U. tenella is given as li lines by Bentham and as 

 3 mm. by C. B. Clarke, and its shape is altogether different from that 

 of the plant here described. Kiikenthai gives the length of the utricles of 

 U. tenella as 3.^- mm., and those of his variet}' longifructus as 6 mm. 

 He also states (incorrectly) that C. B. Clarke always found only two 

 stamens in the male flowers of U. tenella. 



Note on Uncinia tenella R. Br. 



Specimens of an Uncinia collected by Dr. Cockayne and myself at 

 an elevation of about 4,000 ft. on Kelly's Hill (Taramakau River), 

 Westland, belong, so far as I can judge, to this species, the typical 

 form of which has not so far been recorded from New Zealand. These 

 closely match specimens of Brown's plant from (1) Southport (Tasmania), 

 (2) Upper Yarra (Victoria), and (3) the Dandenong Ranges (Victoria), 

 given me by the late- Sir Ferdinand Mueller. In the Kelly's Hill plant 

 the stamens were 3 in the few male flowers I could spare for dis- 

 section. In one of the Southport plants there were 2 stamens in three 

 of the male flowers, and 3 in two other flowers. Bentham found only 2 

 stamens in the flowers he examined. Mr. C. B. Clarke says the stamens 

 in the specimens seen were 2, at least most frequently — " saltern saepissime." 

 The utricles of the Kelly's Hill plant difl'er in no respect from those of 

 tvpical U. tenella. Mr. Cheeseman {Manual, p. 800) considers the Kelly's 

 Hill plant intermediate between U. tenella R. Br. and U. nervosa Boott. 

 What U. nervosa may be no one knows definitely. Bentham remarks that 



