Danthonia. ]} GRAMINE. 891 
lobes produced into fine awns often as long as the glume, central 
awn from between the lobes, usually exserted beyond the spikelet, 
flat and spirally twisted at the base, a ring of short silky hairs 
around the glume at the base, and a transverse ring of longer 
hairs (often arranged in separate tufts) Just below the base of the 
lobes. Palea exceeding the base of the awn, narrow - oblong. — 
Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 304; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 333; Benth. FI. 
Austral. vii. 595; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 34. D. unarede, Raoul, 
Chotw, 11, t. 4. D. gracilis, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 308, t. 698. 
Var. setifolia, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 304.—Culms more densely tufted. 
Leaves very narrow, terete from the strongly involute margins, strict, wiry, 
erect. Panicle smaller, with fewer spikelets. Flowering glumes less copiously 
silky, the hairs of the upper transverse band shorter.—D. semiannularis var. 
alpina, Buch. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. iv. (1872) 225; N.Z. Grasses, t. 34(2)a. 
Norra anp SoutH Istanps, Stewart IstaAnp, CHATHAM JsLANDS: Abund- 
ant throughout, var. setifolia in mountainous situations. Sea-level to 
4500 ft. 
Also abundant throughout the whole of temperate Australia. In New 
Zealand this species and D. pilosa are now largely sown as pasture grasses, 
especially in the northern part of the colony. On stiff clay soils they are far 
more permanent than most introduced species, and might with advantage be 
substituted for them. 
12. D. Buchanani, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 333.— Culms 
tufted, slender, smooth, quite glabrous, 3-12in. high. Leaves 
mostly at the base of the stems and much shorter than them, 
strict, erect, wiry, very narrow, involute, filiform or nearly so; 
sheaths pale, glabrous, deeply grooved; ligules reduced to a band 
ot short white hairs. Panicle small, contracted, 3—2in. long, of 
4-12 spikelets; branches few, scaberulous. Spikelets pale-green, 
4+-1in. long, 3—5-flowered. Two outer glumes exceeding the 
flowering glumes and often the awns as well, subequal, oblong- 
lanceolate, acute, 3—d5-nerved. Hlowering glumes 7-9-nerved, 
2-lobed at the tip, the lobes produced into short awns, central awn 
from between the lobes, short, hardly equalling the length of the 
glume, straight or bent, not at all or very obscurely twisted at the 
base, a tuft of silky hairs at the base of the glume and on the 
margins higher up, usually connected by straggling hairs on the 
back and sides, forming an indistinct transverse ring. Palea 
oblong, 2-nerved ; nerves ciliate. 
SourH Isuanp: Canterbury—Upper Waimakariri, Kirk! Petrie! 7’. F'. C.; 
Mount Torlesse, Petrie! Otago—Lake district, Hector and Buchanan! Kurow, 
Mount Ida, Macrae’s, Pembroke, Bendigo, Lake Te Anau, Petrie! 1000- 
3000 ft. 
Very closely allied to D. semiannularis, with which Professor Hackel is 
disposed to unite it. But the spikelets are smaller, the awns shorter, often not 
exserted beyond the outer glumes, and the flowering glume is shorter and 
broader, and more sparingly silky. The plant figured by Mr. Buchanan in his 
New Zealand Grasses (t. 35) as Danthonia Buchanani is a slender form of 
Hierochle redolens. 
