428 Transactions. — Botany. 
Var. secta.—Larger, rootstocks often matted together and forming minia- 
ture trunks 2-4 feet high. Panicle larger, more slender, much more com- 
pound, often with lax drooping branches; perigynia smaller and broader, 
faintly nerved or quite smooth and polished. C. secta, Boott in Hook. fil. 
Fl. Nov. Zeal., i., 989 ; IU. Car., t. 199, 124. 
North and South Islands.—The varieties virgata and secta abundant 
throughout, from the North Cape to Stewart Island, and from sea-level to 
an altitude of over 3,000 Nek Var. appressa.— South Island —Near Dunedin 
and Otago Peninsula, G. M. Thomson! D. Petrie! Milford Sound, Dr. 
Hector, G. M. Thomson. Auckland and Campbell Islands, Sir J. D. Hooker. 
(Handbook.) 
I have followed Mr. Bentham and Sir F. Mueller in uniting the three 
plants mentioned above with the northern C. paniculata, L.; a course long 
àgo indicated by the sagacious Robert Brown. Small specimens of C. 
appressa (and particularly some Tasmanian ones), are almost identical with 
European examples; but usually the plant differs in its larger size, stouter 
habit, and much longer panicles, which in C. paniculata are seldom more 
than 4 or 5 inches long, but in C. appressa are sometimes over 18 inches, 
and proportionally stout. €. virgata recedes from appressa in the narrower 
foliage, still longer but much more slender panicles, and smaller perigynia ; 
but transition states are occasionally seen. C. secta has drooping panicles 
often 2 feet long, with lax spreading branches, and in its extreme form is 
widely different from any northern variety of C. paniculata. Reduced or 
mountain forms, however, gradually approach C. virgata, the panicles becom- 
ing shorter, and the side branches less developed. After the study and 
comparison of many specimens, both New Zealand and foreign, it appears to 
me that the differences between the three varieties and between them and 
the typical C. paniculata are mainly those of habit, size, and luxuriance, and 
that there are no structural deviations of sufficient importance available for 
specific distinction. 
C. paniculata is widely distributed m New Zealand, and perhaps con- 
tributes more to the general physiognomy of the vegetation than any other 
species of the genus. Everyone who has had occasion to pass through 
swampy districts is familiar with the huge tussocks formed by the matted 
rootstocks of the variety secta, sometimes from four to five feet high, with a 
diameter of nearly two feet. Outside New Zealand, Australia and Tas- 
mania the species ranges through Europe and Western Asia. A variety is 
found in California, but the plant seems to be unknown in Eastern America. 
11. C. viridis, Petrie, Trans. N.Z. Inst., xiii., 882. Pale whitish-green. 
Stems slender, wiry, tufted, terete below, compressed or plano-convex above, 
grooved, perfectly smooth, 6-24 inches high. Leaves shorter than the 
