Colenso. — Xewly-discovered Indigenous Plants. 28l 



oblong or sub-lanceolate, and rather large for the innermost 

 scale, and (with the 8th) apiculate and concave. Nut narrow, 

 spindle-shaped, sub 4-sided at the middle, much grooved, 3 lines 

 long, white, shining, black tipped, with base of style persistent, 

 transversely ribbed within, ribs few, 6-7; style long, 2-branched, 

 Btigmatic branches 4, sometimes 5, blackish rough. ? Hypogy- 

 nous scales (" filameuts of authors") 8, very long and fine, and 

 excessively crinkled and compacted, both within spikelet around 

 base of nut as well as outside, light red-brown. 



Hab. Dry Fagus forests near Norsewood, County of Wai- 

 pawa ; 1885 : W.C. 



(>bs. A species having pretty close natural affinity with the 

 preceding species, G. parviflora. 



A Note on the Genus Gahnia. 



It is a curious fact that no modern botanical author has 

 given any description of the anthers of Gahnia ; indeed, they 

 are not once mentioned or alluded to by them, not even when 

 describing tbe genus or its species. Not by Brown, " Prod. 

 Fl. Nov. Holl. ;" nor by Kunth, usually so very complete, " Plant. 

 Enum. ;" nor by Hooker, in both " Fl. Nov. Zel.," and in the 

 " Handbook Fl. N.Z.," and also " Fl. Tasm. ;" nor by Bentham, 

 in " Fl. Austral." Forster, however, who constituted the genus, 

 does so, giving at the same time a characteristic drawing of the 

 anthers of his type species (" Char. Gen. Plant.," tab. 26) ; at 

 the same time Forster omits altogether the long " filaments." 

 La Billardiere, who described two species, and has given plates of 

 them with dissections in his large work, " Prod. N. H. Plant.," 

 shows the anther ; and in' both Forster and La Billardiere there 

 is also the peculiar and specifically distinct connective. In two 

 of these species now described by me I have been able to give 

 their respective anthers, in which their connectives also differ 

 considerably, and thus afford a valuable specific character. 

 Both Forster and La Billardiere, who describe the anthers and 

 stamens of their species, show how very short the stamens are ; 

 which, however, by the latter are said to lengthen after flower- 

 ing, but only (as shown in his plates) in a very limited degree. 

 Subsequent botanical authors have said that this lengthening of 

 the stamens forrns those greatly elongated and crumpled " fila- 

 ments" so highly characteristic of this genus. I have, hoAvever, 

 my doubts as to whether those are not hypogynous scales 

 (some of them at least), similar, only much longer and flaccid, 

 to those of the closely allied genus Lepidosperma. At all 

 events, such is really the case in two of the four species I 

 have described in this paper, (G. scaberula and G. exigua,) in 

 which are to be found, at the same time, both short stamens 

 bearing anthers and those long crumpled " filaments " — which 



