Order GRAMINE^. 



GENUS VII. PANICUM, Linnseus. 



Spikelets variously arranged, naked, or with bristles at their base ; spiked, 

 racemed or panicled ; i -flowered, or, if 2-flowered, the lower male. 

 Glumes 4, awned or awnless ; lowest small or minute, empty ; second 

 larger, empty ; third empty, or male-flowered, uppermost with a herma- 

 phrodite flower, fainter-nerved, smooth, hardening and enclosing the 

 palea and grain. Palea like the glume, but smaller, 2-nerved. Scales 2, 

 truncate. Stamens 3. Grain free. DISTRIBUTION OF GENUS : 

 TROPICAL AND SUB-TROPICAL CLIMATES. Etymology; 

 From the Latin name "Panis " (Bread). 



L PANICUM IMBEC1LLE. 



SLENDER PANICK GRASS. 



(Plate XL) 



OPLISMENUS SETARIOUS, Rcem and Schult; Kunth. Enum. L, 139. 

 Benth Fl. Austral. VII. ORTHOPOGON ^EMULUS, R. Brown, Prod. 194. 

 HEKATEROSACHNE ELATIOR, Steudel. OPLISMENUS ^EMULUS, Kunth. 

 Hook, fil., Fl. N.Z., I., 291. PANICUM IMBECILLE, Trinius. Hook. fil. 

 Handb. N.Z. Flora, L, 323. 



A WEAK, slender, decumbent grass, rooting at the nodes, culms erect, 

 6 1 8 inches long, sparingly branched, ascending to 1000 1500 feet 

 altitude. Flowers December February. Perennial. Leaves i 6 

 inches long, J i inch broad, lanceolate; sheaths of leaves and knots 

 of culms more or less pilose. Spikelets spiked, in distant clusters of 

 2 6, nearly sessile, A -inch long, glabrous or pilose, naked, or with a 

 brush of hairs at base. Empty glumes 3, often pilose on the back, 

 membranous; first empty glume shortest, 3-nerved, and with a long 

 flexuose, stout, obtuse awn; second empty glume larger, sharply acute, 

 5-nerved, and with a very short awn ; third empty glume acute, y-nerved. 



