Order GRAMINE^i. 



4. DANTHONIA RAOULII. 



NARROW LEAVED OAT TUSSAC GRASS. 

 (Plate XXX.) 



DANTHONIA RIGIDA, Raoul. Hook, fil., Fl. N.Z. I., 303. DANTHONIA 

 RAOULII, Steud. Hook, fil., Handb. N.Z. Flora, I., 332. 



A VERY large tussac grass, from sea-level to 4000 feet altitude. Flowers 

 December January. Culms 3 8 feet high, J-inch diameter. Leaves 

 3 6 feet long, coriaceous, involute and filiform ; ligule o, or a line of 

 short hairs round the mouth of sheath. Panicle large, drooping, 10 18 

 inches long ; branches 6 1 2 inches long, distant, often sub-dividing 

 near the bottom. Spikelets alternate on the branches, \ f-inch long, 

 4 8 flowered. Empty glumes unequal, 3 5-nerved. Flowering glume 

 deeply 2-fid, and shortly awned on the lobes, 9-nerved, covered with 

 numerous short hairs on the lower half, margins and back fringed with 

 long hairs, awn flattened and twisted, often straight ; pedicel tufted with 

 long hairs. Palea bifid at top, with straggling long hairs on the margins. 

 Scales oblong-acute, crowned with numerous cilia. DISTRIBUTION OF 

 SPECIES: NEW ZEALAND. 



This species forms the largest tussacs of the family, and was very abundant in 

 Otago and Southland before the occupation of the country by settlers. At that 

 time the pasture was very superior, chiefly from the shelter afforded by the 

 numerous large tussacs to the growth of the smaller grasses which were then 

 abundant. Injudicious burning, however, had destroyed all these finer grasses 

 before the enclosure of the land by fencing. On improving land intended exclusively 

 for pastoral purposes, or for the raising of large stock in districts exposed to cold 

 winds, it may be questioned whether the entire destruction of the native grasses, 

 especially the larger tussac kinds, is judicious, as their conservation, or culture, 

 where they do not exist, would certainly prove an element of profit, not only from 

 their own intrinsic value as food, but, also, from their sheltering all kinds of stock, 

 as well as protecting from the nipping winds the smaller grasses which should form 

 the bulk of every pasture. The indigenous grasses of New Zealand are, undoubt- 

 edly, more permanent and fattening than the introduced grasses of cultivation, 

 and it might prove expedient in many districts, to adopt a mixed system, by 

 which the larger tussac grasses, both native and introduced, might be planted 



