172 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
are usually either of the grass or the rush form. From rushes the 
rush-like sedges are distinguished by the former having flowers 
with small but nevertheless distinct floral leaves, while the dis- 
tinction between grasses and sedges is that the former have hollow, 
jointed stems, and leaves with split leaf-sheaths, while the latter 
have solid stems, frequently angular, and the leaf-sheaths not split. 
The genera comprise Mariscus (1 species); Hlaeocharis (5 species) ; 
Fimbristylis (1 species, which frequently grows near hot springs) ; 
Scirpus (13 species, including the sand-binding pingao, S. frondosus) ; 
Carpha (1 species—C. alpina—also found in Tasmania, Victoria, and 
the high mountains of New Guinea); Schoenus (7 species, including 
S. brevifolius and S. tendo, plants of physiognomic importance on 
the Auckland gumlands, and the false snow-grass (S. pauciflorus), the 
characteristic plant of one bog association in the high mountains) ; 
Cladium (10 species, including the magnificent C. Sinclairw of certain 
North Island cliffs) ; C. teretifoliwm and C. glomeratum, characteristic 
swamp-plants, both closely resembling one another; Lepidosperma 
(2 species); Gahnia (8 species); Oreobolus (3 species)—all cushion- 
plants; the hooked sedges (Uncinia), a genus of South American 
affinity, with 15 species; and the highly important genus Carex, 
the true sedges, with some 55 species, varying from huge tussocks 
crowning massive trunks to tiny grass-like tufts an inch or two 
high—e.g., Carex pyrenaica var. cephalotes (also Australian) and 
C. acicularis, both species rock-dwellers on the highest mountains. 
The grass family (Gramineae) is the most important economic 
plant-family in the world, since it supplies man and his grazing-animals 
with the great bulk of their food—e.g., pasture grasses, cereals (wheat, 
oats, barley, rye, maize), sugar (the sugar-cane), and also provides many 
ornamental plants, some of which are economic, as the bamboos ; 
nor must the value of grasses in the landscape of temperate countries 
be forgotten, giving, as they do, the restful green of the countryside, 
which is imitated in our garden lawns. The New Zealand species 
number 127, distributed into 28 genera, of which the largest are: 
Poa (30 species), Danthonia (15 species), Deyeuxia (11 species). The 
low tussocks (Poa caespitosa and Festuca novae-zealandiae), the tall 
tussocks (various forms of Danthonia Raoul), and the toetoe-grass 
(Arundo conspicua) are of great physiognomic importance. The 
tussock form, the tufted form, the semi-climbing bamboo form, the 
turf-making form, the mat form, and the cushion form are all 
