Colenso. — Newly-discovered Indigerwus Plants. 277 



Order XI. CYPERACE^h 

 Genus 4. Scirpus, Linn. 

 1. S. novce-zealandirc, sp. uov. 



Rhizome creeping, branched, woody ; stems simple, and 

 branched at base. Culm slender, 2 feet high, 1 line wide, 

 trigonous, cylindrical at base, solid, smooth, pale sea-green. 

 Leaves 3-4, much shorter, longest about half the length of 

 culm, distant, linear, sub-grass-like, H hues "wide, smooth and 

 same colour as culm, deeply channelled, sheathing, apices blunt, 

 margins of tips scaberulous ; sheaths long ; ligula large, elliptic, 

 membranous ; sheathing bracts at base 8-5, broad, 3 lines wide, 

 transversely netted, uppermost abruptly contracted at apex and 

 cuspidate ; cusp narrow linear, nearly 1 inch long. B pikelet 

 solitary, lateral, broadly ovoid, 3-4 lines long, l£ lines broad, 

 sessile, dark red-brown, 12-15-flowered. Glumes broadly ovate, 

 very concave, densely imbricate, membranaceous, very thin at 

 margins, erose and sub-fimbriate towards apex, bifid, aristate, 

 much keeled, red, glabrous, shining ; outermost obsoletely 

 3-nerved, very broad and clasping, transversely wrinkled, finely 

 fimbriate, largely and coarsely aristate. Involucral bract 1^ - 2J 

 inches long, erect, continuing the culm and precisely like it, 

 slightly hollowed into a sheath at the base, with short broken 

 and scarious margins ; tip flattened, sub-acute, margins 

 scaberulous like leaves. Style long, blackish-brown ; stigmatic 

 branches 3, longer than style, flattened at bases, roughish, 

 obtuse. Anthers linear-acuminate, with a long acuminate con- 

 nective, truncate at base, light-yellow ; filaments flat, 1-nerved, 

 pale-coloured. Hypogynous bristles 3-4, shorter than nut, 

 linear, obtuse, largely retrorse-scabrid, red-brown. Nut broadly 

 obovoid, j^th of an inch long, tipped with a small black point 

 remains of style, gibbous, flat on one side, smooth, shining, pale 

 drab- brown minutely spotted with red ; clustered and sessile in 

 little niches around short thick sub-tetragonal spike, upper 3-4, 

 small, abortive. 



Hab. Sandy flats, low margins of rivers, Hawke's Bay ; 

 W.C. Near Puketapu ; 1885 : Mr. D. P. Balfour. 



Obs. A species having affinity with another indigenous species, 

 S. triqueter (of R. Brown), and of " Flora Novae Zelandiaa," 

 and also of the "Handbook New Zealand Flora," but said by 

 Bentham not to be the S. triqueter of Linn., but to be S. pungens, 

 Vahl, (" Flora Australiensis,") differing, however, in several 

 characters. 



Genus G. Isolepis, Brown. 

 1. /. reticularis, sp. nov. 



Plant small, gregarious, loosely tufted, filiform, flaccid, sub- 

 erect and drooping, light-green. Culms 5-8 inches long, sub- 

 cylindrical, compressed, channelled on inner surface. Leaves 



