100 
45, TETRARRHENA. 
Spikelets one-flowered, sessile or very shortly pedicellate in a simple 
spike or in a scarcely branched spike-like panicle’; the rhachis of the 
spikelet articulate above the two outer glumes. 
Glumes six, two outer small and persistent, the third various, the 
fourth usually the largest and rigid, the fifth similar but usually 
smaller, the sixth narrower but keeled like them, none of them awned. 
Flower terminal. 
No palea. 
Lodicules large, very thin. 
Stamens four. 
Styles short, distinct. 
Grain enclosed in the larger glumes, but free from them. 
2. Tetrarrhena juncea, R.Br. 
Botanical name.—Tetrarrhena—tetra, Greek for four; arrhen, man 
(stamen), the flowers having four stamens; jwncea—Latin, rush-like. 
Synonym.—Ehrharta juncea, Spreng., in F.v.M. Census. 
Vernacular name.—* Wire-grass.” 
W here figured.—Hooker, Fl. Tasmania. 
Botanical description (B. Fl., vu, 554). 
Stems either long, slender, and slightly branched, or more branched and entangled, 
scrambling over bushes to the height of 8 to 12 feet. (F. Mueller.) 
Leaves narrow, glabrous or pubescent, with short rigid hairs, 
Spike or raceme simple, 1 to 2 inches long, the rhachis flexuose. 
Spikelets distant, sessile or nearly so, 2 to 24 lines long. Two outer glumes short 
but unequal, obtuse, faintly-nerved, third glume nearly equal to the fourth and 
fifth, all three obtuse, prominently three- or five-nerved, sixth glume enclosing 
the flower, very narrow and hyaline. 
Value as a fodder.—It must be very little, perhaps affording a bite 
for stock, with other grasses, in the spring. Its tough stems and 
straggling habit would preclude stock walking amongst it even if it 
were otherwise desirable. It is a hindrance to travellers in the dis- 
tricts im which it grows. Stirling, speaking of the Australian Alps, 
says that even the dreaded thorns and the “‘Climbing Lawyer” (Smilaz 
australis) are less objectionable than the finely serrated stems and 
leaves of this grass. 
Habitat and range.—Found in Tasmania, Victoria, and New South 
Wales. In our Colony, from the Blue Mountains, in a southerly 
direction, to Victoria. 
44, ALOPECURUS. 
Spikelets one-flowered, flat, densely crowed into a cylindrical spike 
or spike-like panicle. 
Glumes three, two outer complicate, keeled, acute, but not awned, 
third under the flower shorter, keeled, with a short slender dorsal awn. 
