144 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



shining hairs. Ligule broad, decurrent along the margins of the 

 sheath, from 4 to 6 lines long, variously split, but not ciliate, 

 frequently divided to the base in two or three parts, each section 

 often again more or less slit at the top, jagged or toothed. 

 Panicle of a yellowish green colour, from about 8 inches to more 

 than a foot long, shining, erect, dense, narrow, finally open. 

 Empty glumes unequal, thin, almost hyaline, slightly scabrous at 

 the back of the membranous portion and the veins. Outer 

 glume from 8 to 10 lines long, three-veined and strongly keeled. 

 Inner glume much shorter, about 5 to 6 lines long, usually but 

 not always somewhat truncated and denticulated. Flowering 

 glume 2 lines long, on a hairy stipes, the hyaline, involute 

 margins ending in a small thin lobe on each side of the awn ; 

 densely beset with short whitish shining hairs ; the stipes about }i 

 of an inch long, with longer appressed or rather spreading hairs. 

 Awn shining, capillary, very fine, from less than 5 to 8 inches 

 long, tortuous below, bent and twisted above, slightly rough 

 throughout its length. Palea oblong-linear, slightly shorter than 

 the flowering glume, hairy at the back and the top. Lodicules 

 short, narrow, tender, scarcely half a line long. Grain narrow, 

 rather less than two lines long. 



Flowers October-November. Hilly Mallee country and sandy 

 heaths. Lowan, Dimboola shire, 1892 ; F. M. Reader. 



This species is dedicated to my learned friend Mr. D. Mac- 

 Alpine, Government Vegetable Pathologist and Mycologist. 



The presence of the lobe of the flowering glume places this 

 species in the section with the flowering glumes silky-hairy, the 

 hyaline margins at the end produced into a small lobe on each side 

 of the awn, &c. Stipa Macalpinei approaches S. Jlavescens, one 

 species contained therein, in tlie lobes of the flowering glume, and 

 hairy stipes, but the ligule is much larger, the outer empty glume 

 truncate, &c. From 5. teretifolia, the only other species found in 

 that section, it differs chiefly also in the outer glume, and in the 

 flowering glume being much longer. 



This new grass has several characters in common with Slipa 

 compressa — the lower leaves with short sheaths, the upper sheath 

 with long loose lamina, embracing the base of the panicle, but the 

 lobes of the flowering glumes are absent in it, and separate the 

 two species. In the latter species the flowering glume is shorter. 



In Stipa Drummondi and S. pycnostachya, two species charac- 

 teristic of the upper embracing sheaths, the lobes of the inflexed 

 margins of the flowering glume are wanting, though in S. pycno- 

 stachyd the tops of the inflexed margins are slightly dilated. The 

 former species differs also from S. Macalpinei in the ligule being 

 much shorter, broad, and rounded, in the short awn, &c. In the 

 latter species the leaves are subulate, the panicle spike-Hke, the 

 flowering glume and awns shorter. The variety pubescens of Stipa 



