Pktrie. — On New Plants. 393 



pale grooved sheaths ; ligule oblong. Panicle narrow (in the 

 typical form) or effuse, usually inclined, 10 in. long or less, 

 distantly branched ; branches 2-4, capillary, glabrous or 

 scabrid, sparingly subdivided, bearing few small shortly 

 pedicelled spikelets chiefly along their upper half. Spikelets 

 small, narrow-ovate, |in. long and about half as broad, 

 usually 4- to 6-flowered, the flowers sessile and crowded on 

 the rachis. Empty glumes unequal, membranous, subacute, 

 half as long as the flowering-glume next above. Flowering- 

 glumes compressed, green or pale, membranous, 5-nerved, 

 acute, glabrous or slightly scabrid on the nerves, not webbed 

 at the base, the midrib scabrid ; palea two-thirds the length 

 of the glume. 



Hob. Waipahi, Kelso, and Cromwell, in Otago, on alluvial 

 flats. 



Besides the typical form, I have two well-marked varieties 

 of this grass. 



Var. minor. — Plant shorter and more densely tufted ; 

 leaves slender, involute, much shorter than the culms ; 

 panicles shorter and more effuse ; spikelets smaller and 

 fewer flowered. This variety grows at Ngapara, near 

 Oamaru, and is most abundant on alluvial flats in the 

 Manuherikia Plain, in Central Otago. A form closely akin 

 to it occurs at Kakanui Mouth, but its panicle is long and 

 very effuse, and the flowers, though small, are normal in 

 number. 



Var. tenuis. — Very slender, spreading, with flat leaves 

 and long narrow green spikelets ; flowers more distant, with 

 acute strongly nerved glumes that are sometimes slightly 

 webbed at the base. This variety was abundant in valley - 

 bottoms in the Catlin's Eiver district before settlement began. 

 The clearing of the bush and the attacks of stock have since 

 almost exterminated it in this district. A better series of 

 specimens than I now possess might prove that var. tenuis is 

 an independent species. Unfortunately, the rich collection 

 of specimens from various stations that I once possessed has 

 been lost, through being lent to the late Mr. T. Kirk to aid 

 him in his preparation of a new Flora of New Zealand. 



The present grass is of considerable economic value, and 

 would well repay cultivation. It is now to be found only in 

 spots protected from cattle and sheep by shrubby thickets 

 and bushes of Phormium. Var. minor is, however, still 

 abundant, but its value is much less. 



Poa mattheivsii is, no doubt, one of the grasses of the main 

 islands that Sir Joseph Hooker included in Poa breviglumis, 

 a species, so far as we know, confined to the southern off 

 islands. It is easy to understand how Hooker, with his 

 scanty materials and his desire to avoid setting up invalid 



