Order GRAMINE^. 



2. PASPALUM DISTICHUM. 



SEA-SIDE MILLET, 

 (Plate X. B.) 



PASPALUM LITTORALE, R. Brown, Prod. 188; Trin. Spe. Gram. I., t. 112. 

 PASPALUM DISTICHUM, Burmann. Fl. N.Z., I., 291. Handb. N.Z. 

 Flora, I., 323. 



A CREEPING, glabrous, littoral grass. Flowers December February. 

 Perennial. Culms branched, compressed, ascending; 4 10 inches 

 high, covered with leaf-sheaths to the top. Leaves distichous, strict, 

 involute ; ligule short, broad, rounded at top ; mouth of sheath with a 

 tuft of silky hairs on each side. Spikes in pairs, i inch long; rachis 

 narrow. Spikelets loosely imbricate, glabrous, pedicelled, ovate, acute, 

 i-inch long. Empty glumes 2, membranous, 5 -nerved. Flou'ering 

 glume slightly concave, faintly 3-nerved. Palea flat, faintly 2 -nerved. 

 Scales 2, fleshy, truncate. Styles long. Stigmas feathery, shorter than 

 the style. Stamens 3. Grain ovate, flat, thin, free within the hardened 

 glume. DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES : NEW ZEALAND, also a common 

 Tropical and Sub-Tropical Grass. 



This is a grass of considerable value, and is commonly found on littoral 

 swamp land, and wet bottoms among sand-hills on the coast-line of Auckland and 

 Islands on the East Coast localities where superior grasses are seldom found. It 

 is also common in similar situations in Australia, where, according to Mr. 

 Bacchus, ' ' its nutrient properties are considerable, .horses and cattle eating it 

 readily." From the fact that this grass supplies valuable food for stock in 

 localities^where species of value are never abundantly found, is obtained an argu- 

 ment in favour of its introduction to similar places in other parts of New Zealand, 

 where the climate would permit its growth. At the proper season seed could, no 

 doubt, be collected in sufficient quantity to sow down a few square yards of fenced 

 ground adapted for the purpose, as an experiment, and, if this should prove a 

 failure, inoculation by plants is always possible with grasses which have creeping 

 roots, as in^this species. 



There are also exotic species of this Genus of great value, which might be 

 introduced with much probability of success in the swamps of the \Vaikato, or 



