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Outer glumes acute, above 4 inch, and sometimes nearly 1 inch long. 
Flowering glumes usually four to eight, not exceeding the outer ones, the lobes 
lanceolate, with a broad or narrow hyaline margin, acute or tapering into a point 
or rather a short fine awn, the long hairs of the cilia copious at the base and 
margins, and forming a ring round the back immediately under the lobes, the 
twisted awn varying from 4 to 1 inch. 
Palea longer than the entire base of the glume, often two-pointed. 
Botanical Notes —The common form, apparently abundant in the 
Southern Colonies, has usually a compact narrow panicle and the pale 
or greenish outer glumes often smooth and shining. The loose-flowered 
form with the outer glumes dark-coloured appears to be chiefly about 
Port Jackson and the Blue Mountains, and occasionally in Tasmania. 
Var. alpina.—Stems short and densely tufted. Leaves rather stout, 
conyolute and very glabrous. Australian Alps. 
Value as a fodder.—A valuable grass when young, but in arid country 
it becomes very harsh when old. A Wilcannia correspondent writes :— 
** Grows strong on country near the tank, but nothing will eat it, not 
even the rabbits, and there is no sign of any other feed. On Baden 
Park and Mount Manaro Stations with same results.” 
Habitat and Range.—Found in all the colonies, and in most parts of 
New South Wales, from the coast to the interior. Perhaps our most 
widely diffused Danthonia. 
11. Danthonia paucifiora, R.Br. 
Botanical name.—Pauciflora, Latin, pauci few, flos-floris flower; few- 
flowered, the panicle containing but few flowers. 
Vernacular name.—< Few-flowered Oat-grass.” 
Where jigured.—Buchanan ; Hooker, fl. Tasmania. 
Botanical description (B. FL, vu, 596). A small plant forming low 
dense branching tufts of fine rigid leaves not above 1 inch long and 
the stems not above 6 inches, or when luxuriant both weaker and longer. 
Panicle ovoid, of few shortly pedicellate spikelets, sometimes reduced to 2 or 3. 
Outer glumes three lines long or rather more. 
Flowering glumes 3 or 4, very short, with short broad lobes, acute or with short fine 
awns, the hairs chiefly at the base and margins not forming a transverse ring, 
the central awn rather longer than the lobes or lateral awns. 
Palea obtuse. 
Var. ? alpina, F.v.M. Panicle small and narrow. Glumes small, 
the flowering ones with very few hairs and very short awns, but with 
the short broad lateral lobes of the typical form. Summits of the 
Australian Alps. 
Value as a fodder—A small Alpine pasture grass. Its small rigid 
leaves do not recommend it as a pasture grass, yet, from its evident 
perennial habit, it may prove valuable on those higher altitudes 
where few grasses can exist. (Buchanan.) It is cropped by sheep. 
Habitat and Range.—Found in Tasmania, Victoria, and New South 
Wales, as well as in New Zealand. In Victoria and New South 
Wales on the Australian Alps. 
