340 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 niches high, including spike ; spike 1^ inches 

 long, bearing 12 flowers, 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 3^ 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, 1-| inches long, flat, spreading, succulent ; anthers linear, 

 light brown ; pollen numerous, issuing in large white grains, possessing a 

 sugary appearance. 



Hah. Epiphytical on living trees, in forests near Norsewood (same 

 locality as that of the fern, 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 fern, plant two years before. 

 Order XI. CYPEBACE^E. 

 Genus 9. Cladium, Linn. 

 Cladium (Vincentia) gahnoides, sp. nov. 



Plant growing in large bushy tufts ; culms 2 feet high, compressed", 

 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 ; loiver glumes 

 and bracts awned, glabrous, very slightly and minutely scaberulous on mid- 

 nerve at back ; stamens 3, 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 Gahnice ; 

 colour pale light-brown. 



* See " Transactions N.Z. Institute," vol. xiv., p. 335, for a description of the female plant. 



