226 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS I BOTANY. 



short rays. Spikelets large, purplish, 4-5-flowered ; the flowers enclosed 

 by long woolly hairs. Glumes subequal, ciliate, mucronate, the lower 5-7- 

 nerved; the floral glume like the others; the //<? short, truncate. 



A fine species, like P. antarctica Hook., approaching Festuca. 



Magellan, "Freshwater Bay, named by me Duclos Bay." (Commer- 

 son, 1767.) 



IO. P. CONTROVERSA Steud. 



Cespitiferous. Culm erect, glabrous; leaves rigid, convolute, smooth, 

 pungent, 30 cm. long,, their sheaths dilated ; ligules long, cleft. Panicle 

 contracted, its rays subverticillate, many-spiculate. Spikelets ovate, 5-flow- 

 ered, the flowers alternate, remote. Glumes lanceolate, scarcely equalling 

 the first flower; floral glume 2-toothed with a short awn between. 



Patagon. and Fuegia (Speg.); Falklands. 



II. P. DENUDATA Steud. 



Roots fibrous, cespitiferous. C^ilms erect, strict or basally jointed, 

 smooth, striate, 30 cm. high, sheaths glabrous, striate. Ligule nearly 

 wanting. Leaves terete-convolute, smooth, not exceeding the culm. 

 Panicle very long-exserted, contracted, with semi-whorled rays, shorter at 

 the base. Spikelets 5-7-flowered, flowers green to white, varied. Glumes 

 ovate-lanceolate, equalling the lowest flowers. Floral ghtme acute with 

 rough keel. 



N. W. Patagon., Valdivia. 



P. DENUDATA MINOR. 

 12. P. ERINACEA Speg. 



Hermaphrodite or polygamous, densely cespitose; sterile and fertile 

 fascicles often crowded and monostichously imbricated, all similar. 

 Leaves mostly distichous, glabrous. Sheaths broad, close, minutely 2- 

 auricled. Lamince subterete, short, rigid, very sharply pungent-mucro- 

 nate. Culms smooth, erect, slender, naked or i -leaved. Spike strict, 

 erect, secund, its nodes 2-3-pedicelliferous. Pedicels short, scabrid. 

 Spikelets compressed, often 2-flowered, the lower flower perfect, the upper 

 male, both glabrous ; glumes awnless. 



Chubut, in dry salinas. Forming hemispherical masses, 10-25 cm - 

 diam. 



