356 Transactions. — Botany. 



two tapering styles. Fruit minute ovate turgid, somewhat compressed, 

 one-celled, ribs indistinct. 



I think there can be little doubt about including the plant just described 

 in the genus HemijjJiues. Certainty about its position cannot of course be 

 attained until flowering specimens are examined. The fruit is minute, and 

 not easy to dissect so as to show its structure plainly. Still I am satisfied 

 that it is one- celled. 



Whatever surprise may be felt at the discovery of a Hemiphues in 

 Stewart Island, should be greatly lessened by the fact that another Tas- 

 manian alpme plant, viz., Liparophyllum gunnii, grows abundantly side by 

 side with it. 



By way of postcript I may add that I have another apparently umbellifer- 

 ous plant, of a most anomalous character, gathered in the same localities as 

 Hemiphues novcB-zealanclice, which may prove another species of that genus. It 

 has a very different general appearance, but the involucral leaves and one- 

 celled fi'uit closely resemble Hemijjhues. The specimens are long past flower, 

 and the fruits, from which the stylopodia have become detached, have fallen 

 off nearly all my specimens. As I cannot indicate the genus, or even the 

 natural order (for it might be a composite plant) with any certainty from 

 the few poor specimens in my possession, I shall not now attempt any 

 partial description of it. 



Akt. LII. — Description of a new Species of Ehrharta. By D. Peteie, M.A. 



Plate X. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 10th February, 1880.] 



Ehrharta thomsoni, n.s. 



A SHOKT tufted grass ; culm flattened, branched, 2-5 inches long. Leaves 

 distichous, glabrous, flat or concave, about ^ inch long, deeply and closely 

 grooved ; sheaths imbricating, broad, pale, ligule none. 



Panicle contracted, erect, of 2-4 spikelets, on short slender stalks. 

 Empty glumes, four ; lower pair short, broad, obtuse, nearly equal; upper 

 pair thrice the length of the lower, lanceolate, laterally compressed, nearly 

 equal, silky at the base, 3-5-nerved, the nerves coalescing to form an acute 

 awn-like tip, scabrid on the keel. Flowering glume shorter, three-nerved, 

 bluntly and shortly acuminate. Palea linear rather coriaceous. Scales 

 large, broadly acute, entire. Grain enclosed in the flowering glume, 

 Stamens and styles not seen, 



