272 Transactions.— Botany. 
This species has very close affinity with U. laviflora, mihi. It differs in 
habit, in the shorter, more uniform, stouter and less lax-flowered spikelets, 
and in the size of the utricle. Intermediate forms may connect these two 
species into one variable series, This appears to form part of U. caspitosa 
of the Handbook. 
8. Uncinia purpurata, n. sp. 
A species of sparse growth. 
Leaves much shorter than the fullgrown culms, grassy, concave or flat, 
J- inch wide, slightly scabrid. 
Culms twice as long as the leaves or more, rather slender, wiry, terete, 
smooth. 
Spikelets 4-13 inch long ; bract none. 
Glumes closely imbricate, broadly ovate, obtuse or subacute, dark brown 
with white margins, strongly keeled, shorter than the utricle. Utricle 
ovate-oblong, plano-convex, tapering above, dark brown but paler at the 
top, with numerous faint veins ; bristle incurved as long as the utricle. 
Hab. Signal Hill, Dunedin. 
Var. robusta. Leaves as long as the culms, flat, scabrid. 
Culms stouter, shorter, slightly scabrid towards the top. 
Spikelets with male portion shorter, very variable in length 1-23 inches. 
Glumes and utricle as in typical form. 
Hab. Maungatua, Taieri. 
This very distinct. species stands close to U. rubra, Boott. The forms 
which I have placed under var. robusta differ widely in habit from the typical 
form of the species, and may yet prove sufficiently distinct to be worthy of 
specific rank, In the meantime, relying on the likeness of the spikelets, I 
prefer to regard them as a variety of the species described. 
Art. XXXIL— Description of a new Species of Carmichelia, with Notes on 
the Distribution of the Species native to Otago. By D. Perme, M.A. 
[Read before the Otago Institute, 12th August, 1884.] 
Carmichelia compacta, n. sp. 
A tow dense much-branched somewhat spreading shrub, rarely exceeding 4 
feet in height, the ends of the stouter branches giving off a profusion of 
slender wiry terete leafless grooved twigs. 
Leaves not seen. 
Flowers abundant, 1 inch long, in compact glabrous 8-8-flowered 
racemes, the peduncles 4 or 5 times the length of the calyx, springing from 
the axil of a subulate scale, and bearing two acuminate bracts a little below 
the calyx. 
