298 Eiuart, White and Wood : 



axis 1-5 inches apart, and closer toAvards the top. The com- 

 mon pedicel to each group of 3 spikelets about 2-6 inches, bear- 

 ing terminally a hermaphrodite spikelet and 2 lateral male 

 spikelets on stallvs of slightly unequal length. The common 

 pedicel above the oblique pointed articulation, possesses com- 

 paratively long silky white hairs, which turn brown when the 

 fruit is rijDe, the stalks of the 2 male spikelets are edged with 

 a row of similar hairs, are broader than the common pedicel 

 and are slightly flattened. There are 2 keel-shaped empty, 

 unawned, sterile glumes in both kinds of spikelets, about 3 lines 

 long, and covered externally with soft white hairs. In the 

 hermaphrodite spikelet, they are rather hard and rigid, and 

 wrapped round the gynaecium, and their extremities are blunt 

 and shortly bilobed. In the male spikelets, they remain more 

 or less membranous, and their extremities are acuminate. 



There is one transparent, flowering glume, which, without the 

 awn, is about | the length of the outer glumes. The twisted 

 awn is attached to the back of the flowering glume near the 

 base, is sharply bent, measures 3-4 inches in length, and is 

 hairy at the edges. 



The Pale is membranous, transparent, 2-nerved, a little 

 shorter than the flowering glume. 



Stamens 3, similar in Ijoth kinds of flower. 



Ovary free from the glume, styles 2, very fine, united for 

 about \ of their length — 1-H lines long. 



Stigmas about 1 line long, pointed at the end. 



Fruit surrounded by the persistent glumes, which are dark 

 brown, shining, and almost glabrous when the fruit is ripe, and 

 also by the persistent, flattened pedicels of the male spikelets. 



Caryopsis about 2 lines long. Starch grains simple and com- 

 pound, but mostly simple. 



Prince Regent's River, North-West Australia, Bradshaw and 

 Allen, 1891 ; Napier, Broome Bay, North-West Australia, G. F. 

 Hill, 18/5/10. No. 161. 



This large and striking grass, with almost cane-like stems and 

 solid internodes. filled with loose pith, comes from a district 

 hitherto little explored, and may possibly be only locally dis- 

 tribiited. It is apparently a semi-aquatic reed-like grass. The 

 leaves and young shoots seem to be nutritious, and the loosely 



