Order GRAMINE/E. 



10. DANTHONIA NUDA. 



NAKED OAT GRASS. 

 (Plate XXXVI. A.) 



DANTHONIA NUDA, Hook, fil., Fl. N.Z. II., 337. DANTHONIA NUDA, 



Hook, fil., Handb. Fl. N.Z. I., 337. 



A SMALL sub-alpine grass, found at 3000 4000 feet altitude. Flowers 

 December January. Culms ^ 10 inches high, slender. Leaves 

 glabrous, shorter than the culms, very narrow, involute, sheathing leaves 

 short ; ligitle o, or a line of short hairs round mouth of sheath, and long 

 cilia on both sides. Panicle \ 2 inches long, of 6 10 erect spikelets, 

 lower spikelets longest branched. Spikelets pale purple or greenish 

 white, i-inch long, 3 5-flowered. Empty glumes longer than the 

 spikelets, 5-nerved. Flowering glumes glabrous, shortly 2-fid at the top, 

 with a short central awn, Q-nerved, and with one pencil of hairs on each 

 margin ; pedicels with short tufts of hairs. Pa lea bifid. Scales broad, 

 3 lobed and crowned with cilia. Ovary pear-shaped. Stigmas linear. 

 Grain narrow-oblong. DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES : NEW ZEALAND. 



This valuable little pasture grass is abundant on sub-alpine hills, but very apt 

 to be overlooked from its small size, and general resemblance to other grasses, 

 such as small forms of Poa, or introduced Fescues. From its succulent nature, and 

 as It belongs to the family which includes some of the most nutritious grasses in New 

 Zealand, it may be considered as having some claim as a valuable sheep grass, 

 and also from being indigenous to the soil, it may prove more hardy and better 

 adapted to those bleak hilly districts where it is found, than many of the introduced 

 grasses. DISTRIBUTION IN NEW ZEALAND: NORTH ISLAND: MOUN- 

 TAINS NEAR THE EAST COAST Colenso. SOUTH ISLAND : MOUN- 

 TAINS OF NELSON, (40005000 feet) H. H. Travers ; KAIHIKU HILLS, 

 OTAGO J. Buchanan. 



Reference to Plate XXXVI. A : Fig. 1. Plant. 2. Spikelet. 3. Floret. 

 4. Nervation of empty glumes. 5. Nervation of flowering glume. 6. Nerva- 

 tion of Palea. 7. Scale. 8. Grain. 



M 



