Spinifex. | GRAMINES, 851 
Also common in Australia and New Caledonia. It is a valuable plant for 
fixing the surface of moving sand-dunes. 
9. EHRHARTA, Thunb. 
Perennial or annual grasses, of very varied habit. Leaves flat 
or convolute. Spikelets laterally compressed, 1-flowered, pedicel- 
late, arranged in a panicle or simple raceme; rhachilla disarticu- 
lating above the 2 lowest glumes, obscurely produced above the 
flower. Glumes 5d; the 2 lowest short, empty; 3rd and 4th longer, 
awned, frequently hairy at the base, also empty, 4th the longest, 
often with a callus at its base; 5th or flowering glume shorter, 
thinner, never awned, usually witha callus or tuft of hairs at its base. 
Palea narrow, keeled, finely and closely 2-nerved. Stamens 6 in 
the great majority of the species, 2 only in the New Zealand ones. 
Styles short or rather long; stigmas plumose. Grain ovoid or 
elliptic, compressed, enclosed within the flowering glume and palea, 
but free from them. 
A genus of 27 species, all but the two following natives of South Africa, one 
of them extending northwards to eastern tropical Africa and Arabia. 
Culms 6-18in. Panicle 2-4in., many-spiculate. Two 
lowest empty glumes acute .. 36 aS Ey 
Culms 1-5in. Raceme small, of 2-5 spikelets. Two 
lowest empty glumes broad, obtuse 20 
1. H. Colensoi. 
2. H. Thomsoni. 
1. EH. Colensoi, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. 1. 288, t. 654.—Culms 
numerous, tufted, branched at the base, glabrous, many-noded, 
* 6-18in. high. Leaves numerous, distichous, suberect, the upper ones 
4-6 in. long by 4-} in. broad, flat, faintly nerved, glabrous, tapering 
from the base to a slender point, the lowermost with the blades 
much reduced in size and almost scale-like; ligules very short, 
jagged; sheaths short, close, firm, thin, striate, glabrous. Panicles 
contracted, inclined or drooping, 14-4in. long; rhachis slender, 
smooth; branches short, suberect, in small specimens sometimes 
reduced to single spikelets. Spikelets compressed, linear-oblong, 
about +in. long ; pedicels short, slender. Two lowest glumes about 
half the length of the 3rd and 4th respectively, acuminate, 3-5- 
nerved; 3rd and 4th narrower, awned, silky-hairy at the base, 5— 
7-nerved. Flowering glume shorter than the 4th and about equal to 
the 3rd, oblong, obtuse, glabrous. Palea linear; rhachilla produced 
behind it as a minute appendage.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 319; Buch. 
N.Z. Grasses, t. 1. 
NortH Istanp: Ruahine Mountains, Colenso! H. Hill! Petrie! Mount 
Egmont, 7. #. C.; Tararua Mountains, A. H. Travers! SourH Isnanp: 
Nelson—Mount Arthur, Mount Owen, 7. #. C.; Mount Rochfort, Mount 
Faraday, Townson! Canterbury and Westland — Mountains above Arthur’s 
Pass, T. F'. C.; Kelly’s Hill, Petrie! Otago—Clinton Saddle, Lake Te Anau, 
Petrie ! 3000-5500 ft. 
