Order GRAMINE^E. 



2. TRISETUM SUBSPICATUM. 



SPIKED OAT GRASS. 

 (Plate XL. A.) 



TRISETUM SUBSPICATUM, Beauv. Hook, fil., Flora Antarct. I., 97. 

 TRISETUM SUBSPICATUM, Palisot. Hook, fil., Handb. N.Z. Flora, L, 335. 



A SMALL densely tufted alpine grass, found from 500 5000 feet altitude. 

 Flowers January. Culms 4 18 inches high. Leaves flat, as long as, or 

 shorter than the culms, downy ; ligule short, rounded at top, lacerate. 

 Panicle dense, subcylindric, spiciform, i 4 inches long. Spikelels 

 shortly pedicelled, imbricate, \ J-inch long, 2 3-flowered, pale 

 greenish white, shining. Empty glumes shorter than the spikelet, 

 unequal, very acute or cuspidate, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes 2, 

 cuspidate, 5-nerved, awn dorsal, recurved, as long as or longer than the 

 glume, inserted below the 2-cuspidate tip, pedicel tufted with hairs. 

 Palea bifid, 2-nerved. DISTRIBUTION o|| SPECIES: ARCTIC EUROPE, 

 ASIA, AMERICA, AND ALPS OF THE SAME CONTINENTS ; 

 SOUTH AMERICA, FUEGIA, AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA; 

 AUCKLAND, CAMPBELL AND CHATHAM ISLANDS; NEW 

 ZEALAND. 



This grass is apparently confined to the South Island, where even it is at paesent 

 but little known. Hooker says of it in his Antarctic Flora, " Few grasses have 

 so wide a range as this, nor am I acquainted with any other Arctic species which 

 is equally an inhabitant of the opposite polar regions. In Europe it is found at a 

 very great elevation on the Alps and Pyrenees, as also in Lapland. In Asia it 

 frequents the Altai Range, the northern parts of Siberia and Kamschatka, from 

 whence it crosses to Kotzebue's Sound, and is apparently more generally distributed 

 through Arctic America (than in the Old World), from the utmost limits of polar 

 vegetation in Melville Island, throughout Greenland and the Arctic Islands, the 

 Arctic sea-coast, Labrador, Canada, and the Rocky Mountains." It seems 

 improbable that a grass of such vitality and adaptation could be otherwise than 

 valuable, and so, no doubt, it will prove to be when stockowners are enabled to 

 distinguish it from other species. DISTRIBUTION IN NEW ZEALAND : SOUTH 

 ISLAND : LAKE GUYON DISTRICT, NELSON, (5000 feet)-H. H. Travers ; 



