342 Transactions. — Botany. 



Obs. — Sometimes the culm is entirely smooth throughout, and without 

 a hract. 



Genus 14. Carex, Linn. 

 Caresc flagellifera, sp. nov. 



A flaccid diffuse largely tufted species. Culms slender, 7-8 feet long, 

 1 line diameter below, much less above in middle and long panicle, smooth, 

 subcyhndric, hollow in the centre, striate, prostrate, extended, bearing a 

 single leaf about the middle. Leaves drooping and spreading, much shorter 

 than the culms, 2 feet 6 inches long, 1 line wide, stout, smooth, channelled, 

 finely scabrous at edges, and still more slightly so on midrib at back, above 

 but not below, green, regularly striate, with a broad filmy margin at the 

 extreme base. Spikelets 4-6 (usually 5), very distant on panicle, cylindrical 

 2% inches long, peduncled, pendulous ; peduncles 2-3 inches long, com- 

 pressed, lowermost pair 1-2 feet apart, sometimes the lowermost one is 

 compound trifid or shortly tripedicelled, the uppermost one is male and 

 very slender, 1-1- inches long ; bracts very long, narrow and foliaceous, finely 

 scabrid at edges ; glume ovate-acuminate, 1-| lines long, stoutly 1 -nerved, 

 awned, awn barbed ; utricle as long as the glume, broadly lanceolate, 

 bifid, turgid shining, light-brown ; stigmas 2. 



Hub. On sides of abrupt clayey declivities, woods, between Norsewood 

 and Danneverke, Waipawa County, 1881-1883 : W.C. 



Obs. — A very remarkable species, owing to its very long weak and pro- 

 strate culms, which stream away together like long wisps or bands, and so 

 get entangled among the low herbage and common fern — Pteris esculenta. 

 Carex sex-spicata, sp. nov. 



Culms 2 feet-2 ft. 3 in. high, erect, stout, trigonous, smooth, more than 

 1 line in diameter, leafy, culm leaves with a sharply acute triangular hairy 

 ligule ; leaves as long as culms, £ inch wide, sub-rigid, rather harsh, flat, 

 many nerved, the 2 principal lateral nerves white and strong on the upper 

 surface, very acuminate, expanding below into wide filmy sheaths, keeled, 

 closely and finely scabrid at edges, and slightly so on the two white nerves 

 above and on the midrib below, striated ; spikelets 6, approximate, each 

 about 2 inches long, stout,, shortly peduncled, erect, light brown, panicle 

 short, f below of upper spikelet male, and the next two with a very few 

 males below, the other 3 wholly female ; bracts wide, foliaceous ; glume 

 linear-ovate-acuminate, bifid, sub-awned, less than 2 lines long, shorter 

 and much narrower than the utricle, 1-nerved, longitudinally and nume- 

 rously marked with fine short red lines, persistent ; utricle ovate-acuminate, 

 1-nerved, turgid, spreading, smooth, bifid, tips acute, long-produced ; 

 anthers \\ lines long, linear, apiculate, twisted, light brown ; filaments 

 longer than anthers, flat, much flexuose ; stigmas 3. 



