82 FLORA OF TASMANIA. [ Cyperacee. 
bearing a flower each. Style with two long, exserted stigmas, swollen and villous at the base. Nut not seen.— 
PraTE CXLI. 4. Fig. 1, spikelet; 2, scale and flower; 3, pistil :—al/ magnified. 
9. Chzetospora nitens (Br. Prodr. 233); rhizomate repente, culmis nudis teretiusculis sulcatis 
basi foliatis, spiculis congestis lateralibus, squamis subdistichis obtusis nitidis, setis hypogynis basi plumosis, 
nuce trigona levi mutica.—77. N. Zeal. i. 974. (Gunn, 972, 572, in Herb. Lindl.) 
Has. Sand-hills near Georgetown, Gunn.—(Fl. Dec.) 
Disrrib. Extratropical Australia, from New South Wales to Swan River; New Zealand. 
A slender, rigid, wiry, perfectly glabrous plant, 2-12 inches high. Rhizomes creeping; bases of culms and 
leaves covered with appressed, black-brown, shining scales. Leaves slender, erect, semiterete, deeply grooved in 
front. Spikelets two to eight, fascicled, sessile, about an inch below the erect, subulate apex of the culm, 1-4 
inch long, turgid, of four to six broadly ovate, blunt, shining chesnut-brown, nerveless, smooth scales. Nut pale- 
brown, smooth, with six short, plumose, hypogynous bristles.—Brown places this in a section by itself, charac- 
terized by the scales being imbricated all round; but they are truly distichous in all my numerous specimens, 
though less regularly and manifestly so than in the other species. 
4. Cheetospora imberbis (Br. Prodr. 233) ; culmis cespitosis erectis foliatis foliis subaeguilongis, 
spiculis paniculatim fasciculatis axillaribus terminalibusque 2—4-floris, fasciculis bractea foliacea elongata 
subtensis, pedicellis sguamarumgue carina scaberulis, setis hypogynis brevibus scaberulis, nuce trigona alba 
obovata striatim clathrata, stylo basi simplici persistente—F/. N. Zeal. i. 274. C. tenuissima, Steud. Pl. 
Glum. 162. 
Var. a; culmo sub-6-pollicari, bractearum vaginis castaneis nitidis $-pollicaribus, spiculis plurimis 
lanceolatis brunneis. 
Var. 8; culmo 2-3-pollicari, bractearum vaginis brevibus rufis, fasciculis spicularum solitariis (spi- 
eulis interdum solitariis) spiculis brevioribus pallidioribus. (Gunn, 1417.) 
Var. y; culmo 3—4-pollicari, foliis capillaribus, bractearum vagina brevi castanea limbo abbreviato, 
spiculis paucis parvis atro-castaneis. (Gunn, 1494, 581, 976.) 
Var. 8; culmis pedalibus flaceidis foliisque gracillimis, bracteis vagina brevi pallida, spiculis pallidis. 
(Gunn, 1391.) 
Has. All the varieties very abundant in various soils and situations throughout the Island. Var. y, 
in water or marshes.— (Fl. all the year.) (v. v.) 
Distris. New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand. 
This common and variable plant is always easily recognized by its tufted, erect, leafy culms, bearing shortly- 
pedicelled fascicles of lanceolate, compressed, small spikelets, which spring from the axils of a long, 
patent, bracteal 
leaf: it 
varies from 1 inch to a foot high, is of a soft texture, and of a green, grassy hue.— Leaves numerous at the 
base of the culm, longer or shorter than the culm, concave in front, convex at the back. Sheaths of the bracts or 
leaves on the culms long or short, from deep chesnut-brown to bright-red. Fascieles of spikelets subpanicled, few 
or many, generally from the two uppermost rather distant axillee. Spikelets usually three or six in each axil, rarely 
solitary, on long or short scabrid pedicels, lanceolate, compressed, 4— inch long. Seales variable in colour, with 
usually a green, scabrid keel, smooth, dark-brown sides, and rather acuminate, paler apex; the lowermost scales 
vary from being acute to acuminate, and even shortly aristate. Flowers two to four. Sete bristle-shaped, hispid. 
Nut white, short, broadly obovate, trigonous, grooved, the grooves with a longitudinal 
persistent, neither swollen nor jointed on to the nut.— This is probably the C. Zenuissim 
ete., p. 162), which is said to have been gathered at “ Bobat Town” (Hobarton P. 
9. Cheetospora axillaris (Br. Prodr. 233); 
culmis ceespitosis prostratis foliosis subramosis, foliis 
distichis brevibus planiusculis, spiculis axillaribus solitariis binisve 2—3-floris, squamis glaberrimis paucis 
series of pits. Style rather 
a, Steud. (Syn. Plant. Glum. 
