118 a FLORA OF TASMANIA. [ Graminee. 
DrsrRIB. Extratropical Australia, Europe, Middle and South Asia, North and South Africa, North 
and South America (probably often an introduced plant). 
Culms tufted, erect, leafy, a span to a foot high. Leaves flat, 4-4 inch broad, slightly scabrid. Panicle con- 
tracted into a dense eylindrical spike, 1-13 inch long, nearly white, and covered, as it were, with long, spreading 
hairs, which are the awns. 4wns of the glumes three times longer than the glumes; those of the downy palea 
hardly exserted. 
Gen. XVI. PHRAGMITES, Trin. 
Spicule 3-6-flore ; floribus distichis, remotiusculis, sericeis, plumosis, infimo 4, reliquis hermaphro- 
ditis. Glume 2, acute, carinatee ; superior major (interdum monandra). Palez 2, inferior angusta, subu- 
lata; superior bicarinata. Sguamule 2, integre.—Gramina elata, potamobia ; folis latis, planis; pani- 
culis ramosissimis, diffusis. 
A genus consisting of a few large, tall, handsome Grasses, almost always growing in water: the species are 
found in all parts of the globe, the Tasmanian one being particularly widely distributed.— Leaves broad, flat, harsh. 
Panicle large, much branched, dark-purple, of large spikelets, which are three- to six-flowered. Flowers rather 
remote, distichous, very silky with long hairs, lower male, the rest hermaphrodite. Glumes narrow, sharp, keeled. 
Lower palea elongate, narrowed into a short awn. (Name from ¢payyurys, an enclosure; the Reeds being used for 
fencing.) 
1. Phragmites communis (Trin. Fund. 134); foliis elongato-lanceolatis longissime acuminatis, 
panicula erecta demum nutante effusa, glumis subaristatis insequalibus floribus 4—5 longe sericeis breviori- 
bus, palea inferiore aristato-acuminata.— Kunth, En. i. 251. Arundo Phragmites, Zinn. Sp. Pl. 120; Br. 
Prodr. 183. (Gunn, 418.; | 
Has. Abundant in watery places : throughout the Colony.—(v. v 
DisrRrB. Australia, and most temperate and some tropical countries. (Native of England.) 
The largest Tasmanian Grass, 4-8 feet high, smooth, stout, erect. Leaves flat, harsh, with long narrow points. 
Panicle purple, 8-18 inches long, at first erect, then drooping, very feathery from the long silky hair of the flowers, 
which grows as the latter advance. Glumes unequal, almost awned, longer than the flowers. Flowers four or five, 
remote, lower palea very long.—This plant is the common English ** Reed ” much used for thatching, etc. 
Gen. XVII. DESCHAMPSIA, Pal. Beauv. 
Spieule 9—3-flore ; floribus distichis, summo tabescente. Glume 2, carinate, mutice, subeguales, 
floribus breviores. Palee 2; inferior supra basin aristata, apice truncata, 4-dentata; arista brevi, recta; 
superior apice bifida, mutica. Sguamule 2, integra. Caryopsis libera.—Spicule paniculata, pedicellata. 
This genus is most abundant in the temperate and Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, but is 
also found in Fuegia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.—Culms slender, often branched. Leaves flat or convolute. 
Spikelets panicled, shining, pedicellate, two- or three-flowered, the upper flower imperfect. Glwmes two, keeled, awn- 
` less, nearly equal, shorter than the flowers. Lower palea truncate, four-toothed, with a short, straight awn from 
above the middle; upper with two nerves, bifid, awnless. Scales entire. (Named in honour of M. Deschamps, one 
of the naturalists appointed to Lapeyrouse's disastrous expedition.) 
l. Deschampsia czespitosa (Pal. Beauv. Agrost. 91. t. 18. f. 3); glaberrima, nitida, culmis cæs- 
pitosis, foliis plerumque rigidis involutis, panicula diffusa, rhachi leevi, ramulis verticillatis scabridis, glumis 
glabris, floribus 2 sequilongis acutis, paleis glaberrimis superiore basi sericea apice erosa arista zequilonga 
