188 
Vernacular names.—“ Oat Grass,” ‘‘ Wild Oats,” “ Sea-side Brome 
Grass.” It has even been called “ Barley Grass’’—not at all an 
appropriate name. 
Where figured.—Buchanan ; Labillardiére ; Agricultural Gazette. 
Botanical description (B. F1., vii, 661).—Apparently annual, from 1 
to about 14 feet high. 
Leaves flat, flaccid, softly hairy or pubescent. 
Panicle at first erect, at length drooping, the capillary branches clustered, the 
longer ones 2 to 3 inches long, with one to four spikelets on capillary pedicels. 
Spikelets lanceolate, 4 to 2 inch long without the awns, flat, five- to nine- flowered. 
Glumes all pubescent or glabrous, the lowest about 3 lines long and five-nerved, the 
second longer and seven-nerved, both empty and acute. 
Flowering glumes rather longer, about seven-nerved, convex on the back, the awn free 
from a little below the scarious tip, 4 to # inch long. 
Var. macrostachya, Benth. Spikelets 1 inch long, each with fifteen 
to twenty flowers. Yass, Darling River, &Xc. 
Value as a fodder.—An ornamental grass, which, while not of the 
first-class, is a useful fodder plant. It cannot stand drought, withering 
off as the hot weather approaches. Buchanan speaks of it as a common 
sea-side weed, which, from its dry woolly nature, is very unpalatable to 
all kinds of stock. Others, e.g., Woolls, speak of it as “a fine grass 
for cattle.’ Mr. A. R. Crawford writes to me concerning it :—‘“‘I 
received a few seeds of this grass from the Castlereagh, and cultivated 
it on the eastern slopes for many years. It is much liked by stock, 
is fattening, makes a good hay, and is quite an ornamental grass.” 
Fungus found on this grass.—Ustilago bromivora, Waldh., on this 
species, and also B. mollis. Septoria bromi, Sacc., has also been 
recorded from the leaves of Bromus sp. 
Habitat and range.—Found in all the colonies except Tasmania ; 
also occurring in New Zealand. Found in most districts of New South 
Wales. 
98. FESTUCA. 
Spikelets several-flowered, pedicellate, in loose and spreading or 
compact and erect more or less one-sided panicles, the rhachis of the 
spikelet articulate under the flowering glumes, glabrous or nearly so. 
Outer empty glumes narrow, acute, keeled, usually unequal. 
Flowering glumes narrow, acute, or tapering into an untwisted awn 
or rarely obtuse, rounded on the back, faintly nerved. 
Palea narrow, with prominent nerves or keels. 
Ovary glabrous. 
Styles very short, distinct. 
Graim enclosed in the glume and palea and more or less adnate. 
2. Festuca duriuscula, Linn. 
Botanical name.—Festuca—Latin, the shoot or stalk of a tree or 
herb (the appellation not being specially appropriate) ; dwriuscula— 
Latin, somewhat rough or harsh, the texture of the grass beg thus 
described. 
