130 
Baron von Mueller, quoting Stirling, remarks that it is a rough. 
fodder-grass, best utilised for laymg dry and moist meadows, and 
that it affords a fair pasturage if periodically burnt down. This 
opinion of its value, as far as Australia is concerned, is probably the 
correct one; but as so few observations have been recorded in regard 
to it in Australia, perhaps our pastoralists on and near the Australian 
Alps will send notes on the grass now that attention has been drawn 
toit. Its true the same species is found in Europe, but it is quite 
possible that our Australian plants differ in forage value from those 
of the Northern Hemisphere. Most of my specimens have been 
nipped by grazing animals. 
Other uses—Door-mats are sometimes made of the hay by cottagers 
in Scotland. 
I wish to draw attention to the highly ornamental character of this 
grass when in flower. Its spikelets are of a beautiful silvery gray, and 
are almost of metallic lustre. They vary somewhat in size and tint, 
and the panicles are well worthy of being gathered for decorative 
purposes. 
Habitat and range.—This grass is rather common on the Australian 
Alps at an elevation of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. Itis found in damp, cold 
localities in the southern ranges, but as its precise northern limit in 
this colony is not ascertained, correspondence on the subject is invited. 
It is very common in Tasmania, and is also found in Victoria and South 
Australia. Outside Australia, it is found in Europe, Asia and America, 
also in New Zealand and Fuegia, but never in warm climates. 
Reference to plate.—a. Spikelet showing fine dorsal awn attached below the middle of 
the flowering glumes, one flowering glume close above the empty glumes and the other 
raised on a stipes. Flowering glumes truncate and four-toothed. 
60. TRISETUM. 
Spikelets two- rarely three-flowered, in a narrow and dense or loose 
panicle, the rhachis of the spikelet articulate, hairy and more or less 
produced between the flowering glumes and beyond the upper one as. 
a hairy bristle, or bearing a terminal empty glume or male flower. 
gerne empty glumes unequal, acute, keeled, thinly scarious on the 
sides. . 
Flowering glumes more hyaline, keeled, acute or shortly two-fid, 
with a dorsal awn attached above the middle, usually twisted at the 
base and bent in the middle. 
Palea prominently two-nerved, usually two-toothed. 
Styles distinct, stigmatic from near the base. 
Grain glabrous, enclosed in the glume and palea but free from them. 
Seed not furrowed. 
1. Trisetum subspicatum, Beauv. 
Botanical name. Trisetwum—Latin, tres three, seta a bristle, the 
‘three bristles” being the two-fid flowering glum? with two sharp 
