98 TRISETUM ANTARCTICUM. 



silky hairs on each side of the sheath. Panicle erect, slender, open 01 

 contracted, 2 12 inches long, branches short. Spikelets \ -|-inch 

 ong, shining white, or pale green, 3 4-flowered. Empty glumes 

 unequal, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes deeply 2-fid, 5-nerved, with silk) 

 hairs at base ; awn recurved, as long as or longer than the glume, 

 Palea 4-toothed and lacerate at top, 2-nerved. DISTRIBUTION 01 

 SPECIES: NEW ZEALAND. 



This valuable grass is distributed abundantly in both Islands, although i1 

 may be said to attain its maximum of growth in the South, where it becomes ai 

 important element in the pasture. It varies much in size and amount of contractioi 

 in the panicle from the weak delicate form of the Tararua Mountain, Wellington 

 at 5000 feet altitude, to the large robust form from the Clutha, or Mataura Valleys 

 but they all possess the same beautiful lustre which attracts notice as ai 

 ornamental plant. It is only in the South Island that it attains a size whicl 

 would entitle it to be considered as a fodder plant, and it might be often judiciously 

 mixed with Lolium perrene for this purpose. One strong argument in favour of th< 

 cultivation of indigenous grasses, is their great vitality, which may sometimes bi 

 observed near homesteads in the South, where enclosed paddocks after having 

 been carefully ploughed and sown with some popular exotic grass, such as Loliun 

 perrene, when it will be found that the natural growth of indigenous species, sucl 

 as the present, has filled the ditches, and covered the waste places along the fencei 

 with a better and more permanent crop than that cultivated in the adjoining pad 

 docks, and which it ultimately displaces. DISTRIBUTION IN NEW ZEALANP 

 NORTH AND SOUTH ISLAND ABUNDANT. 



Reference to Plate XXXIX. : Fig. 1,1'. Plant, shewing open and contractec 

 panicles. 2. Spikelet. 3. Floret. 4,4'. Nervation of empty glumes. 5. Nerva 

 tion of flowering glume. 6. Nervation of Palea. 7 . Scale. 8. Ovary, styles 

 and stigmas. 



