THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 155 



occasionally geniculate toward the base. Nodes pubescent, 

 leaves mostly long, slender, rather rigid, involute, almost terete 

 and subulate, mostly shorter than the culms. Upper sheath long, 

 smooth, and frequently broad and loose. Upper margin of lower 

 sheaths usually clothed with shining hairs ending at the 

 orifice of the sheath in a tuft. Ligule ciliate. Panicle at first 

 narrow and dense, at length loose and spreading, with capillary 

 fasciculate branches, less than 6 to more than 12 inches long; 

 the pedicels and branches more or less scabrous. Empty glumes 

 long, unequal, purplish or pale ; exterior strongly 3-veined ; 

 interior usually 5-veined ; keels more or less scabrous. Outer 

 empty glume above 9 lines long, acuminate; inner rather more 

 than 7 lines long, acuminate with a longer point. Flowering 

 glume with the rather long stipes about 3^2 lines long, densely 

 covered with usually appressed or the upper at length spreading, 

 shining, yellowish- or reddish-brown hairs. Lobes -£% of an inch 

 long. Awns rather stout at the lower portion, shining, from 

 3 to above 4 inches long, tortuous below, frequently bent twice 

 above, invested with short hairs at the lower part, scabrous above. 

 Palea as long as the flowering glume (without the lobes), hairy 

 along the greater portion of the centre of exterior side. Stamens 

 3 ; anthers ■£% of an inch long. Lodicules about half a line long. 

 Grain narrow, about 2 lines long. 



Flowers October to December. Sandy desert, Lowan, 1898; 

 F. M. Reader. 



Among Australian congeners with the flowering glume hairy, 

 the margins lobed, are the species S. Jiavescens, S. teretifolia, 

 S. muelleri, but in these the ligules are devoid of ciliae, so that 

 for this new species it is necessary to provisionally establish a new 

 sub-section — margins of the flowering glumes lobed, ligule 

 ciliated. 



Probably additional species fitting in this section will be ere 

 long recorded. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLORA OF VICTORIA. 



No. XL 



By F. M. Reader, F.R.H.S. (Communicated by G. Coghill.) 



(Bead before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 10th Sept., 1900.) 



Some Well-defined Varieties of the Species of the 

 Genus Stipa. 

 Stipa pubescens, R. Br., var. semiglabra, new variety. 



Lower sheaths softly hairy ; lamina hirsute with spreading 

 hairs. Lower glume nearly an inch long, upper above y 2 inch. 

 Flowering glume scantily beset with hairs ; awn stout, the smooth 

 hairs scarcely visible, 



