Triodia. | GRAMINEA, 895 
26. TRIODIA, RB. Br. 
Perennial grasses, of very various habit. Leaves narrow, rigid. 
Spikelets 2- to many-flowered, arranged in a lax or narrow panicle ; 
rhachilla disarticulating above the 2 outer glumes and between the. 
flowering glumes. Two outer glumes longer or shorter than the 
flowering glumes, somewhat rigid, empty, keeled, acute, awnless. 
Flowering glumes more or less imbricated, rounded on the back at 
the base, coriaceous or chartaceous, often hairy on the margins and 
callus, 3-nerved, 3-lobed or 3-toothed at the apex, the lobes equal 
or the central one produced into a short awn or mucro. Palea 
broad, thin, with 2 almost marginal keels. Lodicules 2. Sta- 
mens 3. Styles short, distinct; stigmas plumose. Grain usually 
compressed on the back, free within the flowering glume and palea, 
Species from 25 to 30, mostly in the temperate regions of both hemispheres, 
a few in tropical America. The New Zealand species belong to the subgenus 
Rhombolytrum, characterized by the lateral teeth of the flowering glume being 
very small or almost obsolete, the middle tooth being also small and mucronate. 
It contains a few Chilian and North American species in addition to the three 
found in New Zealand, all of which are endemic. 
Densely matted; culms 1-3in. Panicle often reduced to 
a single spikelet. Outer glumes ovate. Flowering 
glumes silky on the margins, distinctly 3-toothed at the 
apex ae SG 3¢ 3.0 or oe) Glo ei emg. 
Culms tufted, 2-Gin. Panicle of 8-12 spikelets. Outer 
glumes lanceolate. Flowering glumes sparsely silky, 
5-T-nerved, minutely 3-toothed at the apex .. sh 
Culms tufted, 2-4in. Panicle of 6-15 spikelets. Outer 
glumes broadly ovate. Flowering glumes glabrous, 
9-nerved, obscurely 3-toothed or irregularly erose at the 
apex ate = si 4g 50 -. o. 2. australis. 
1. T. exigua, 7. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) 378.— 
Small, densely matted, forming a compact sward. Rhizomes long, 
creeping, branched. Culms erect from the rhizome, slender, wiry, 
glabrous, 14-4in. high. Lower leaves reduced to sheathing scales ; 
upper shorter than the culms, 4-2 in. long, very narrow, convolute, 
filiform, rigid, erect or curved, acute or almost pungent at the tip, 
quite glabrous; sheaths closely appressed, pale, membranous, 
grooved ; ligules reduced to a line of short stiff hairs. Panicle fre- 
quently reduced to a single spikelet, sometimes 2-3, rarely as many 
as 4-5; pedicels short, slender, minutely scaberulous. Spikelets 
about 4in. long, ovoid-oblong, 2—4-flowered. Two outer glumes 
subequal, as long as the flowering glumes or very slightly shorter 
than them, concave, ovate, subacute, rigid, the lower one 5-nerved, 
the upper 7-nerved. Flowering glumes broadly ovate, silky on the 
margins and back towards the base, minutely scaberulous above, 
9-nerved, shortly 3-toothed at the apex, the middle tooth mucroni- 
form, not much longer than the lateral teeth. Palea broad, ciliate 
on the keels.—Danthonia pauciflora, Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 368 
(not of f. Br.). 
2. T'. pumila. 
