906 GRAMINES. (Poa. 
9. P. dipsacea, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvi. (1894) 271.— 
Culms erect from an often long and branched creeping and rooting 
base, stout or slender, smooth, leafy, 6-18 in. high. Leaves usually 
shorter than the culms, narrow, involute or complicate, quite smooth: 
and glabrous, deeply striate; sheaths rather loose, pale, deeply 
grooved ; ligules short, broad, submembranous. Panicle 2-5 in. long, 
broadly ovate, lax, few-flowered ; rhachis smooth; branches usually 
in distant pairs, simple or forked, smooth, capillary, bearing few 
large spikelets towards the tips. Spikelets long-pedicelled, elliptic- 
ovate, compressed, greenish-brown, about 4in. long, 4-8-flowered. 
Two outer glumes unequal, almost as long as the flowering glumes 
immediately above them, lanceolate, acute, membranous, smooth 
or finely scabrid on the upper part of the keel. Flowering glumes 
ovate, obtuse or subacute, rather membranous, prominently 5- 
nerved, callus and lower part of the keel and margins with long 
silky hairs, upper part of keel sharply scabrid, surface and nerves in 
the upper half minutely scaberulous. Palea shorter than the glume 
keels ciliate. Anthers long, linear. 
SourH Istanp: Nelson—Raglan Range, 7. F.C. Canterbury—Wet places 
near the sources of the Broken River, Petrie! T. #. C.; Craigieburn Mountains, 
Cockayne ! 3000-5000 ft. 
This seems to be a distinct species, recognised without much difficulty by 
the long decumbent bases of the culms, very lax few-flowered panicle, and large 
spikelets clustered at the tips of the branchlets. Depauperated states approach 
P. pusilla, but are easily distinguished by the larger spikelets and more distinctly 
nerved scaberulous flowering glumes. 
10. P. Cheesemanii, Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxv. (1903) 383. 
—Perennial, hardly tufted ; rhizome with creeping stolons furnished 
with leafless scales. Culms erect or decumbent at the base, slender, 
smooth, terete, 3-noded, the upper node about halt-way up the 
culm, 12-18in. high. Leaves much shorter than the culms, 2-6 in. 
long, about ;4,in. broad, rigid, erect, obtuse at the tip, more or less 
complicate when dry; sheaths shorter than the internodes, sub- 
compressed, keeled in the upper part, glabrous; ligules short, trun- 
cate. Panicle ovate, lax, spreading, 2-5 in. long; rhachis smooth, 
more or less flexuose above ; lower branches ternate, upper binate 
or solitary, slender, almost capillary, lower 2 undivided and smooth, 
towards the tip bearing a few unispiculate branchlets. Spikelets 
elliptic, often tinged with red, rather more than }in. long, 5-6- 
flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, # the length of the flowering 
glumes above them or even more, oblong-lanceolate, acute, 3-nerved, 
quite smooth. Flowering glumes oblong-ovate, subacute, promi- 
nently 5-nerved, callus clothed with long crisped woolly hairs half 
the length of the glume, keel and nerves near the base sparingly 
villous, remainder of the glume smooth and glabrous. Palea almost 
as long as the glume, linear-oblong, scabrid on the keels. Anthers 
linear, about ;4, in. long. 
