Order GRAMINE^. 



8 AGROSTIS BILLARDTERT. 



BILLARDIER'S BENT GRASS. 



(Plate XX ITL) 



AGROSTIS VAOTNATA, Steudel. LACHNAGROSTIS BILLARDIERI, Trinius. 

 AVENA FILIFORMIS, Labill. Flora. Nov., Holl. I., 24 t. 31. DEYEUXIA 

 BILLARDIERI, Kunth. Hook, fil, Fl. N.Z., II., 298. AGROSTIS BILLAR- 

 DIERI, R. Brown. Hook, fil., Fl.. Tasm., II., 115. Handb. N.Z. Flora 

 I., 329. 



A ROBUST glabrous or scaberulous grass. Flowers December March, 

 Annual or Perennial. Culms tufted, 6 18 inches high. Leaves 6 -10 

 inches long, broad or narrow, glabrous or pilose ; ligule short, lacerate 

 on the broad top. Panicle 4 8 inches long, open, branches long, 

 whorled, scaberulous. Spikelcts \ J-inch long, on long slender 

 scaberulous pedicels. Empty glumes nearly equal, scabrid on the mar- 

 gins and keel. 3-nerved, lateral nerves very short. Flowering glume 

 shorter, truncate, with 4 teeth, silky at base, 5-nerved ; awn twice as 

 long as the glume, proceeding from the middle of the back. Palea 

 with a long silky pedicel at back. Scales linear-lanceolate, entire. 

 Styles and Stigmas equal in length. DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES : 

 AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA, NEW ZEALAND. 



This and the two previous species are closely connected, having many inter- 

 mediate forms, but in the specific plants so structurally different, as to be easily 

 distinguished. The present species may be characterised as the smallest of the 

 three in size, but largest in the details of the inflorescence. This species may 

 also be considered as of much value in pasture, it is an early grass on the drier 

 districts of the North Island, and has a very extensive range of growth and 

 adaptation to circumstance of soil, moisture, and heat, growing with equal vigour 

 in littoral swamps, on sand hills, and good pasture land ; it may also be found in 

 waste places among stones or scrub, being annual on dry clay hills, and perennial 

 on good mcist land. 



In Vol. VII. of Bentham and Mueller's "Flora Australiensis, " recently 

 published, some of the New Zealand Agrost'i* have been removed from that Genus 

 and placed in Deyfwxia, from possessing a silky pedicel at the back of the Palea, 



