60 
Glumes four, as in the male, the third with a more or less developed 
palea, and sometimes three stamens or staminodes. 
Palea in the fourth glume perfect. 
Stamens three, often imperfect. 
Styles two, distinct with long shortly-plumose stigmas. 
Grain enclosed in the hardened glume and palea and free from them. 
Spreading or creeping hard branching grasses, the flowering branches 
subtended by leafy or lanceolate and concave bracts. 
Heads of spikelets several inches in diameter ; male spikelets in 
spikes of 1 to 14 inches ; females at the base of rigid rhachises 
of 3 to 4 inches ; plant silky, pubescent, or villous... ... 1. 8. hirsutus. 
Heads of spikelets not above 1 inch diameter; male spikelets 
solitary or clustered within small bracts; females within 
broad bracts, the rhachis shorter than the spikelet, and some- 
times minute or obsolete ... bie sei3 536 ez ... 3. S. paradoxus, 
1. Spinifex hirsutus, Labill. 
Botanical name.—Spinifex, from the Latin, spa a thorn or 
prickle, in allusion to the spinous rhachis of the male spikelets ; 
hirsutus, hairy, in allusion to the general appearance of the plant. 
Vernacular names.— Spiny Rolling Grass” appears to be, perhaps, 
the best name for this grass, but it is by no means in universal use, 
many people simply calling it ‘“ Sandstay ” or “ Sea-coast Grass.” It 
is sometimes called “ Porcupine Grass” in Tasmania. It is not to be 
confused with the so-called “ Spinifexes” of the interior, which are 
botanically Triodia. They are far more prickly, and hence deserve 
the name of Spinifex better than the plants included in that genus. 
The genera Triodia and Spinifex are not closely related to each 
other. 
Where figured.—Labillardicre, Buchanan, Hackel, Agricultural 
Gazette. 
Botanical description (B. Fl., vu., 505).— 
Stem stout, creeping in the sand, forming large tufts. 
Leaves often above 1 foot long with involute margins, clothed, as well as the whole 
plant, with silky or woolly hairs. 
Male plant: Spikes sessile or pedunculate, few or many in a terminal head or 
umbel, and often a cluster of two or three spikes, or a single spike lower down 
on the stem; each spike 1 to 13 inches long ; the rhachis produced into a point 
usually exceeding the spikelets, and sometimes very long. 
Bracts under the spikes or peduncles, lanceolate, acuminate, concave. 
Spikelets sessile in the spike or scarcely pedicellate, 5 to 6 lines long. 
Glumes membranous, hairy, the empty ones five or seven nerved, usually as long 
as or longer than the flowering ones. 
Fertile plant : Spikelets very numerous, in a large dense globular head, each one 
solitary at the base of a spine-like rhachis of 4 inches or more, subtended by a 
much shorter linear-lanceolate bract, the spikelet 6 to 7 lines long, acute or 
acuminate. 
Glumes all nearly similar, with seven or more nerves, the two outer ones rather 
the largest, with more nerves than the others. A palea and sometimes three 
stamens in the axil of the third, and an ovary and three stamens or staminodes in 
the terminal one. 
Value as a fodder.—Very small. 
Other uses.—Its only use, though that is a great one, is as a sand- 
stay. The “Marram Grass” (Psamma arenaria, R. et. S.—a Huropean 
