310 Transactions. —Botany. 
Genus 5. Astelia, Banks and Solander. 
Astelia spicata, Col. (male plant).* 
Plant much the same as the female one in size, leafing, and general 
appearance. Scape erect, 3 inches high, including spike; spike 14 inches 
long, bearing 12 fiowers, the lower ones distant, alternate and pedicelled, 
each one of these having a long leaf-like broadly-lanceolate-acuminate and 
ciliate bract, the lowermost being 84 inches long, acute and pubescent at 
tips ; the upper flowers are sessile, clustered in a dense obtuse spike, each 
one having a fine long linear silky bracteole ; lobes of perianth white, large, 
hyaline, linear-oblong, obtuse, 1-nerved, at first cohering at tips and 
covering anthers, etc., in a conical form, afterwards wholly reflexed; 
filaments white, 14 inches long, flat, spreading, succulent ; anthers linear, 
light brown ; pollen numerous, issuing in large white grains, possessing a 
sugary appearance. | 
Hab. Epiphytical on living trees, in forests near Norsewood (same 
locality as that of the fem. plant), 1883 : W.C. 
Obs.—It is rather a curious incident that, after two years research (and 
always seeing scores of barren (?) plants high up on the neighbouring trees 
around), I found only this one plant in flower, growing in the low fork of a 
tree, just as in the case of the one fem. plant two years before. 
Orper XI. CYPERACEJE 
Genus 9. Cladium, Linn. 
Cladium (Vincentia) gahnoides, sp. nov. 
Plant growing in large bushy tufts; culms 2 feet high, ll 
smooth, leafy ; leaves flat vertically without a midrib, 2-3 feet long, 4-7 
lines broad, linear-acuminate, acute, margins entire, smooth, not cutting, 
sub-membranaceous, softish, finely striate, equitant at bases, pale green ; 
panicle 6-8 inches long, much branched, nodding; bracts sheathing glab- 
rous, dark-brown, lower ones very acuminate, minutely scabrid only at tips; 
branchlets drooping, springing from smaller bracts ; peduncles flat, or tetra- 
gonous, compressed, striate, glabrous; sub-peduncles and pedicels, flat, ciliate- 
scaberulous ; spikelets small, fascicled, rich dark red-brown; lower glumes 
and bracts awned, glabrous, very slightly and minutely scaberulous on mid- 
nerve at back; stamens 8, 1 inch long, flat, colour light-brown, twisted, 
dilated and truncate at apex, elongated and persistent after flowering ; 
style 1 line long, persistent; stigmas 3, linear, longer than style, densely 
papillose ; nut very small, less than 1 line long, spindle-shaped, turgid, 
triquetrous throughout and ribbed at margins, beak minutely barbed, base 
thickened, often hanging by the persistent filaments as in several Gahnie ; 
colour pale light-brown. 
* See “Transactions N.Z. Institute,” vol. xiv., p. 335, for a description of the female plant. 
