MACLOSKIE : GRAMINEvE. 



227 



FIG. 40. 



Poa flabellata, tussock-grass. Roots of leaves 



13. P. FLABELLATA Hook. Tussock-grass. (Dactylis cces. Forst, 



Poa ccespitosa H. nee Forst.) 



Gigantic grasses with fan-shaped leaves, spreading out like young palm- 

 trees. Fig. 40. 



Falklands; Staaten I.; Magellan 

 and Fuegia to Cape Horn ; Eliza- 

 beth I.; Bonner Bay on Picton I., at 

 entrance to Beagle Chan.; (also in 

 Kerguelen I.). 



Gregarious ; valuable as fodder 

 and forming peat ; extending over 

 long patches near the seashore in the 

 Falkland Islands, where it is most 

 abundant and luxuriant. Gov. Moody 

 wrote of its "sweet nutty-flavored 

 roots. Cattle scent it from a dis- 

 tance and use every effort to get at it. 



They will eat the dry tUSSOck-thatch reduced/and spikelets." (After Flor~aantarc7ca^ 



off the roof of a house in winter." 



"Strange that they flourished where there was no herbivorous animal to 

 use them." Discovered by Commerson in 1767. American sealers lived 

 on the nut-like core of the bases of their culms for 14 months. 



14. P. FORSTERI Steud. 



Cespitiferous, in small clumps ; culms numerous, to i meter high, gla- 

 brous, compressed, leafy ; lower leaves higher than the culms, 25 mm. 

 broad at base, upwards with involute margin ; ligules slender, rounded. 

 Panicle interrupted-spike-like, 15-20 cm. by 3-4 mm. Spikelets broad- 

 ovate, 4-flowered ; glumes lance-acuminate, longer than the flowers, the 

 margins involute ; floral glume bifid and mucronate-awned. 



Magellan. 



15. P. FUEGIANA (Hook. f. sub Festuca] Hack. 



Culms erect, 50 cm. tall, leafy especially at base, scaberulous or gla- 

 brous. Panicle effuse or slightly contracted. Glumes ovate-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, subcarinate, floral glume puberulous, dorsally silky on the 

 nerves; flowers short-pedicelled, webby at base, the upper viviparous. 

 Palea bifid, as long as its glume. 



