182 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 



NOTE ON A NEW ZEALAND GRASS. 



Torresia fraseri (Hook. f. ). 



Hierochloe fraseri Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. 1:93. 1844. 



Savastana fraseri Skeels, U. S. Dept. Agr. Bur. PI. Ind. Bull. 248:21. 

 1912. 



This species is a native of New Zealand and Tasmania. It has been 

 referred to Torresia redolens (Forst. ) Roem. & Schult. (Hierochloe 

 redolens R. Br. ) but differs in its smaller size, more slender culms and 

 smaller spikelets. 



Seeds of this grass were sent to the U. S. Department of Agriculture by 

 Dr. A. H. Cockayne, of Wellington, New Zealand. They were referred 

 to me with the request that I designate the name the species should bear 

 in the forthcoming Inventory of Seeds and Plants Imported. I have 

 recently published* a note upon Torresia Ruiz. & Pav., showing it to be 

 the earliest tenable name under the American Code for the species in- 

 cluded under Savastana and Hierochloe, and transferring to it the North 

 American species of the genus. Besides the New Zealand species under 

 consideration there are six or eight other species of the southern hemi- 

 sphere that should be placed under Torresia but the validity of each 

 name should be investigated before the transfer is made. 



— A. S. Hitchcock. 



A NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE OF EPIPERIPATUS IMTHURMI 



(SCLATER).t 



Mr. Gilbert E. Bodkin, the Government Economic Biologist for British 

 Guiana, has recently sent me five specimens of Epiperipatus imthurmi 

 (Sclater) which he collected in .June, 1915, at the Government Rubber 

 Station, Issororo, Northwest District, British Guiana. 



The specimens vary from 32 mm. to 47 mm. in length, and in width 

 from 3 mm. to 4 mm.; four have 30 pairs of ambulatory legs, and the 

 fifth has 31. 



Mr. Bodkin writes: " I discovered them beneath rotten stumps of wood 

 in a lowlying piece of soil at the foot of a hill at the Government Rubber 

 Station, Issororo. The soil here is composed of about five feet of humus 

 overlying clay, and is planted with trees of Havea braziliensis now about 

 six years old. Only stumps in an advanced stage of rottenness were 

 inhabited by these creatures. I found them to be common in this piece 

 of land and secured about fourteen specimens in half an hour; some 

 stumps harboured three or four specimens. I could easily have collected 

 three times the number. Their colour when alive was a beautiful velvety 

 chocolate brown above and a delicate flesh pink on the ventral surface." 



— Austin H. Clark. 



• Amer. Journ. Bot. 2: 300. 1915. 



t Published with the permission of the Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



