Imperata. | GRAMINER. 843 
1. I. arundinacea, Cyr. Pl. Rar. Ic. 1. 26, t.11; var. Kenigii, 
Benth. Fil. Hongk. 419.— Culms 1-3 ft. high, slender, erect, 
glabrous, 3-4-noded. Leaves erect, narrow, often exceeding the 
culms; sheaths rather loose, with a dense erect tuft of hairs at 
the nodes; ligules short, membranous, truncate; lamine linear 
from a very narrow base, acuminate, rather rigid, flat or convolute ; 
margins scabrid; midrib stout. Panicle densely spiciform, 3-6 in. 
long, cylindric, obtuse, silvery-white and shining from the long and 
silky hairs which conceal the glumes; branchlets very numerous, 
appressed; pedicels capillary or setaceous, clavate at the apex. 
Spikelets about %in. long, completely enveloped by fine silky 
hairs +in. long. Empty glumes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse or sub- 
acute, ay cubis 5—T-nerved or the uppermost nerveless. Flowering 
glume 4-3 as long as the upper empty glume, ovate, acute, glabrous, 
hyaline, nerveless. Palea about 4 as long as the glume, quadrate, 
truncate, nerveless. Stamens 2. Stigmas long, purple.—Hack. in 
D.C. Monog. Phan. vi. 94; Stapf. Fl. Capen. vii. 321. 
NortH Isuanp: Auckland—Near Kaitaia, R. H. Matthews ! 
Perhaps introduced only, but it is one of those species which might be 
expected to be indigenous in the extreme north of the colony, and I have 
consequently given it the benefit of the doubt. The species, in some of its 
forms, is found in all warm countries; var. Kenigii is common throughout 
Africa, and in Australia and Tasmania, stretching northwards to India, China, 
and Japan. 
2. I. Cheesemanii, Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxvy. (1903) 
378.—Perennial, innovation-shoots extravaginal. Culms 1-3 ft. 
high, simple, stout, erect, glabrous, 3-noded. Leaves numerous, 
rather shorter than the culms; sheaths loose, bearded at the mouth 
but otherwise glabrous, the uppermost sheathing the base of the 
panicle, the lowest scale-like ; ligules short, truncate, membranous ; 
laminz linear from a narrow base, acute or acuminate, 4— 2 in. 
broad, flat, nerved, glabrous; margins scabrid above. Panicle 
narrow- lanceolate, gradually narrowed upwards into an acute point, 
5-10 in. long, iE in. broad, dense but not so much so as in 
8 arundinacea, ace white with long soft hairs that conceal the 
glumes, not shining; branches numerous, erecto-patent, flexuose, 
simple or with short branchlets in the lower half, pedicels clavate 
(eos Spikelets about $in. long, enveloped by long soft Hairs 
Outer glume as long as the spikelet, lanceolate, sub- 
acute, “membranous, obscurely 5-nerved, laxly pilose along the back, 
ciliolate at the apex; the 2nd similar but 3-nerved; 3rd 4 shorter, 
broadly ovate, obtuse, hyaline, nerveless. Flowering “glume 4 
shorter than the outer empty glumes, ovate, acuminate, tridentate. 
hyalne, nerveless. Palea broad, truncate, fimbriate - ciliate. 
Stamen 1. Stigmas long, purple.—I. arundinacea, Cheesem. in 
Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 175 (not of Cyr.). 
