Eleusine.| GRAMINEA. 893 
rather slender, straight, 14-3 in. long, usually 3-6 in a terminal 
umbel, generally one inserted lower down; rhachis smooth or 
pubescent at the base. Spikelets about +in. long, densely im- 
bricated, 8-6-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, the lower small, 
1-nerved; the upper 3-5-nerved. Flowering glumes much larger, 
ovate when spread out, acute, 3-nerved. Grain oblong; pericarp 
very lax and membranous, enclosing the rugose seed.—Bemnth. 
Fl. Austral. vii. 615; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 
176. 
Kermapec Isntanps: Lower portions of Sunday Island and on Meyer 
Island, plentiful and apparently indigenous, 7. #. C. Norra anp Souts Is- 
LANDS: Naturalised near Auckland, Sinclair, and at Westport, Townson ! 
25. ARUNDO, Linn. 
Tall perennial reed-like grasses. Culms densely tufted, stout, 
almost woody at the base. Leaves flat. Spikelets numerous, 
laterally compressed, 2—7-flowered, arranged in large decompound 
panicles ; rhachilla disarticulating above the two outer glumes and 
between the flowering glumes. Two outer glumes persistent, empty, 
subequal, lanceolate, acuminate, membranous, glabrous. Flower- 
ing glumes oyvate-lanceolate, 3-5-nerved, pilose along the back and 
towards the base with long silky hairs, 2-fid at the apex, witha 
cuspidate point or awn from between the lobes. Palea short, 
hyaline, 2-nerved. Lodicules 2, obovate. Stamens 38. Ovarv 
glabrous; styles distinct; stigmas plumose. Grain oblong, free 
within the flowering glume and palea. 
A small genus of 6 or 7 species, dispersed through most tropical and warm- 
temperate regions. The two species found in New Zealand are endemic. 
Two outer glumes including the flowering glumes and their 
awns. Flowering glumes deeply bifid, the divisions long 
and bristle-pointed .. 1. A. conspicua. 
Two outer glumes shorter than the avwns of the ‘flowering 
glumes. Flowering glumes not so deeply bifid, the divi- 
sions scarcely bristle-pointed .. 2. A. fulvida. 
1. A. conspicua, Horst. Prodr. n. 48.—Forming huge dense tus- 
socks with numerous long curving leaves. Culms 3-10 ft. high, as 
thick as the finger at the base, slender, erect, smooth, hollow. 
Leaves long, narrow, coriaceous, ‘flat or aval strongly nerved, 
smooth or scabrid along the margins and on the nerves of the upper 
surface; sheaths long, smooth; ligules reduced to a transverse 
band of short stiff hairs. Panicle very handsome, silky-white or 
yellowish-white, copiously branched, 1-2 ft. long; branches droop- 
ing, very many-spiculate, smooth or pilose- scabrid. Spikelets 1-3- 
flowered, on short capillary pedicels. Two outer glumes subequal, 
—-14in. long, longer than or at least equalling the awns of the 
eae glumes, narrow-lanceolate, gradually tapering into long 
