147 
Botanical description (B. F1., vii, 606). 
Leaves very nearly those of 7. pungens but longer, nearly terete, pungent-pointed, 
with viscid sheaths. 
Panicle very much looser, 3 to 4 inches long, with capillary branches more or less 
spreading ; the lower ones 1 to 1} inches long, with three or four pedicellate 
_ spikelets ; the upper ones short with one or two spikelets. 
Spikelets dark-coloured, 4 inch long when fully out, ovate or oblong, with eight to 
twelve flowers. 
Outer glumes three-nerved, obtuse or minutely three-toothed, about 3 lines long. 
Flowering glumes 2} lines long, three-nerved, the entire part densely silky-villous 
and at length somewhat hardened, the three acute rigid glabrous lobes as long 
as the entire part or the central one rather longer. 
Palea glabrous. 
Value as a fodder—A wiry, wninviting grass, utterly valueless for 
stock-feed except when quite young. 
Habitat and range.—Found in all the Colonies except Tasmania and 
Victoria. An interior species. 
4. Triodia irritans, R.Br. 
Botanical name.—Irritans, Watin, provoking, which this harsh, 
prickly grass frequently is to travellers. 
Botanical description(B. F1., vii, 607).—A rigid, scrubby, glabrous 
grass with long rigid convyolute pungent-pointed leaves, not viscid in 
any of the specimens seen. 
Panicle narrow, almost spike-like, 3 to 6 inches long. 
Spikelets solitary or few together, on short erect capillary pedicels or branches, 
mostly three- or four-flowered, 4 to 5 lines long. 
Outer glumes glabrous, acute, five-nerved, 3 lines long. 
Flowering glumes not quite so long, villous with silky hairs at the base but much less 
so than in 7’. pungens, truncate at the end, with three sets of three nerves, each 
leading to three very short obtuse or truncate lobes or teeth, the lateral ones 
rather broad, the central one smaller or minute. 
Palea narrow. 
Value as a fodder.—Of no value. 
Habitat and range-——Found in all the colonies except ‘Tasmania. 
Only found in the arid interior. 
The occurrence of a resin in a Triodia, or in fact in any grass, 1s a 
very interesting circumstance, and I attach copies of two papers by 
myself on the subject. The matter is worthy of further inquiry. 
Last year (1888) Sir William Macleay was kind enough to give me 
“a sample of gum used by the blacks for cementing the heads of 
spears,* and prepared from Spinifex roots,” which had been collected 
by Mr. Walter Froggatt in the Napier Range (locally called Barrier 
Range), 100 miles mland from Derby, North-west Australia. 
I was dubious as to it being the product of a “ Spinifex,” never 
having heard of a grass yielding a resin, but Mr. Froggatt is emphatic 
that he is not mistaken, nor is so experienced a collector likely to be. 
The Spinifex is probably Triodia irritans, R.Br., but further infor- 
mation on the subject, giving the mode of preparation of the resin 
* « The heads of spears from Western Australia in my collection are coated with a 
hard gum, forming a ridge on one side, in which pieces of glass are impacted.” Brough 
Smyth’s Aborigines of Victoria, &c., i, 336. Mr. Froggatt informs me that Spinifex resin 
is put to such a purpose in the locality from which he obtained it. 
