392 Transactions. — Botany. 



almost divaricating, sparingly subdivided, scabrid, bearing 

 few shortly pedicelled spikelets at the tips of the branchlets. 

 Spikelets rather small, narrow, very uniform, pale, polished 

 and shining, glabrous, about -Jin. long, 3- to 5-flowered, 

 obscurely nerved. Empty glumes shorter than the flowering, 

 about half the length of the spikelet, membranous, narrow, 

 acute, subequal. Flowering-glumes coriaceous, subacute, 

 faintly 3- to 5-nerved, glabrous or slightly downy on the 

 back, webbed at the base, sometimes serrate along the mid- 

 rib, as is occasionally the case in the empty glumes also ; 

 palea rather stiff 



The typical state of this grass is that found on sandhills 

 on the west coast of the North Island to the north of the 

 Waikato Heads, but I cannot separate from it by any good 

 or constant characters a darker-green inland form that ranges 

 throughout both Islands as far south as Catlin's Eiver, in the 

 south-east of Otago. 



Its closest affinity is with Poa colcnsoi, Hk. f,, and Poa 

 pusilla, Berggren. I consider it impossible to identify the 

 typical sandhill plant with Berggren's species, but some of 

 the inland forms included in my species approximate to what 

 appear to be large forms of Berggren's plant. Specimens 

 from distant and diverse stations display great uniformity 

 of character. Variation is chiefly seen in the flatness or 

 involution of the leaves, woodland specimens being decidedly 

 flatter, the scabrid serrature of the back of the glumes, and 

 the extent of the downiness and the webbing at the base 

 of the flowering-glumes. I have not noticed any panicle 

 having more than two branches at one node. 



The present species has been long known, but it was con- 

 founded with Poa breviglumis, Hook, f., by most botanists, 

 and most likely by Hooker himself. It is now certain that it 

 does not belong to that species. The following stations are 

 from labels in my herbarium : Typical form — Ahipara Bay, 

 Maunganui Bluff, Kaipara Heads, Waitakerei West, Manukau 

 Heads. Inland form — Opanaki (Kaihu Valley), Tirau (Upper 

 Thames), Hiruharama (Waipiro Bay), Bealey (Canterbury 

 Alps), Maungatua, Catlin's River. A number of my speci- 

 mens have been received from Mr. Cheeseman and Mr. Kirk, 

 those of the latter under the name "Poa breviglumis, Hk. f.," 

 an identification which Mr. Kirk abandoned in later vears. 



5. Poa matthewsii, sp. nov. 



A slender tufted or spreading grass, m the typical form 

 sparingly leafy, 10in.-20in. high. Stems branched at the 

 base, striate and grooved, smooth, clothed at anthesis to the 

 base of the panicle by the sheaths of the cauline leaves. 

 Leaves narrow, flat or involute, glabrous, longer than the 



