866 GRAMINES, [Agrostis. 
is separated by the innovation-shoots being intravaginal and not clothed with 
leafless scales, to say nothing of the broader leaves, dense panicle, and spikelets 
with the empty glumes scabrid on the keel. 
6. A. parviflora, &. Br. Prodr. 170.—Culms laxly tufted, very 
slender, weak, often decumbent or prostrate at the base, erect or 
ascending above, quite smooth, 6-18 in. long. Leaves chiefly to- 
wards the base of the culms, the lowermost soon withering, 2-6 in. 
long, usually narrow and often almost filiform, but in luxuriant 
specimens broader and sometimes ;4,-;4,in. diam., flaccid, flat or 
involute, smooth or the margins minutely scabrid; sheaths long, 
grooved, quite smooth ; ligules long, membranous, lacerate. Panicle 
varying in length from 2 to 6in. or more, compound, very lax and 
slender, drooping; primary branches long, capillary, scaberulous, 
erect at first but soon spreading, trichotomously divided, lowermost 
in clusters of 4-6, upper in distant pairs; secondary branches from 
above the middle, again divided; pedicels thickened at the tips. 
Spikelets very minute, about 54, in. long, shining, pale-green, some- 
times tinged with purple. Two outer glumes slightly unequal, 
lanceolate, acute, membranous, slightly scabrid on the keel, margins 
hyaline ; 8rd or flowering glume about + shorter, broad, truncate, 
hyaline, delicately 5-nerved, awnless. Palea wanting.—Hook. f. Ft. 
Nov. Zel. 1. 296; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 328. A. seabra, Benth. FI. 
Austral. vu. 576 (not of Walld.). 
Nort Is~tanp: Inland Patea and shores of Cook Strait, Colenso! SourH 
IstanpD: Pelorus Valley, J. Macmahon! near Westport, Townson! near Dunedin, 
Petrie ! 
I am greatly puzzled with this species, which can be recognised without 
much difficulty by the weak habit, very slender lax spreading panicle, and 
minute spikelets, which are smaller than those of any other New Zealand 
species. It was originally referred to A. parviflora by Hooker in the Flora, but 
does not quite match the plate of that species given in the ‘‘ Flora Tasmanica”’ 
(t. 158), nor any Australian specimens that I have seen. Bentham referred the 
Australian plant to A. scabra, Willd., a North American species; but that is a 
larger and more erect plant, with a more copiously divided panicle, and with 
narrower spikelets, much more scabrid on the keel. Professor Hackel, who has 
examined my specimens, says, ‘‘ Not easy to name. Surely not A. scabra, 
Willd., but very near the North American A. perennans, Tuck. It is most pro- 
bably A. parviflora, R. Br., but without seeing one of Brown’s types I cannot be 
quite sure of the identity.’’ It should be mentioned that most of the specimens 
referred to A. parviflora by New Zealand botanists are nothing but small states 
of A. Dyeri, Petrie, (the A. canina of the Handbook), as, for instance, the plant 
figured as A. parviflora by Buchanan in his New Zealand Grasses, t. 20c. All 
such specimens can be at once distinguished by the strict habit, contracted 
panicle, and larger spikelets. 
7. A. tenella, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxii. (1890) 442.— 
Apparently annual. Culms laxly tufted, erect, very slender, 
quite smooth and glabrous, 3-4-noded, 6-15in. high. Leaves few, 
much shorter than the culms, erect, very narrow, filiform or seta- 
ceous, Involute, finely striate; sheaths rather long, close, smooth ; 
